In the 21st century, where new information for knowledge is being created faster than can be absorbed the discarding of information is questioned. Discarded, however, is a very direct term. The terms means to throw away because it is useless or unwanted (Discard). Although people seem to be “throwing away” the information that they base their knowledge on, they are only improving it. It is key to continue to grow as a species and advance the information people obtain and understand. For this reason, the improvement to knowledge allows humans a clearer understanding of themselves.
This statement is of value in the natural sciences.
The natural science is an area of knowledge that has seen many changes in knowledge in a short amount of time,
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In the natural sciences, information is changed because there is new and relevant information that trumps the old. Yet in history, the area of revisionist history holds less prestige. Just as the natural sciences goal is to learn more about humans, so does revisionist history. It is a historian’s job to discover the fallacies and incontinences in our history and make the edits to provide accurate knowledge (Zinn). In this way, information that is regarded as true one day can quickly change the next. For example the saying “Columbus sailed the blue in 1492” is a phrase that is sung by many American school children even today. The celebration on October 10th to commend the courageous and heroic Christopher Columbus has been halted in the United States. This is because the once romanticized version of Columbus achievements has been suppressed by the revisions revisionist historians have made. Columbus has now been associated as the a man of great brutality against the Native Indians of the area, the initiator of massacres, and a person driven by his desire for personal success (Zinn). There are even theories that suggest that Columbus was not the first man to discover the Americas (Zinn). The information above is discomforting to hear for many. That is because emotion is greatly tied to changes made in history, especially. Unlike the natural sciences where advancements and clarifications are openly accepted, changes to information connect to different emotions in this area of knowledge. History, which is the study of the past, is very valuable for society. From a young age, people learn to value history and base a large deal of our knowledge on it. As a society, people are emotionally connected
Not only have we had useless irrelevant information instilled onto us by the government, but it has dehumanized us as well. We plan to help instil knowledge back into the general population, to make us ////”
The knowledge question “To what extent do we trust the opinions of experts in searching for knowledge” is relevant to our daily lives because we rely on them for our decision making and issues regarding life and death. It is important that we are aware of both arguments of the same issue so we’ll be conscious of both opinions and using both our knowledge and belief, form knowledge.
Consider this: a random doctor comes up to you, professing to have a cure for any and all kinds of viruses. He presents a syringe of the “antidote”, he has not provided background nor the results of his experimentation. Would you take the antidote? Within a person's life time, there will be various moments of skepticism. Skepticism can be both beneficial and detrimental, it can also lead to the arising of various knowledge claims. One of the ways by, which a person can gain knowledge is through their level of skepticism. Some knowledge claims that can arise as a result of too much or too little skepticism include; does this approach allow for knowledge to be gained with some degree of certainty? Is this approach to gaining knowledge reliable? Within the various areas of knowledge, the manner in which we absorb the information and knowledge provided can vary. With some areas of knowledge, the information we gain we may take in without questioning. In other areas of knowledge, we might take in the information with a grain of salt; presenting our skepticism. My thesis is that while skepticism can be a beneficial approach to gaining knowledge in the AOKs of the natural sciences and history, it can also be detrimental, based on the impact the AOK has on the person observing it, as well as the perspective of the person. The subsequent knowledge issues that arise as a result, will need to be analyzed in order for me to be able to evaluate the “skeptics” approach in the AOKs of natural science and history.
Our knowledge is a key to our success and happiness in our life to give us personal satisfaction. Knowledge is power but not always. Sometimes our self-awareness and growth as an individual gives us negative thoughts that make us want to go back to undo it. Everyone wants to unlearn a part in our life that brought us pain and problems. Good or bad experiences brought by true wisdom can be used for our self-acceptance, self-fulfillment and these experiences would make us stronger as we walk to the road of our so called “life”, but Douglas’s and my experience about knowledge confirmed his belief that “Knowledge is a curse”. Both of us felt frustrated and sad from learning knowledge.
Through out history ideas that differed or challenged the general public’s point of view, has created a sense of fear. The idea of fear through knowledge still exist, and perception is the reason for that. The need for knowledge or understanding all comes from within, but the societal perception of new and revolutionary knowledge is usually harsh or even considered unmoral. Religion played a very big role on the societal perception of revolutionary knowledge, but as time progressed the acceptance rate increased. The differences in perception and understanding of new knowledge affects human behaviors towards processing new information, or information that just simply differs from their own personal beliefs.
Knowledge is something that we as human strive to conquer. It it is the beginning to everything, and consequently becomes a very powerful entity of life. The beginning of the human desire for knowledge came in the Garden of Eden, with Eve and the serpent. Adam and Eve had not realized their desire for knowledge until Satan came in and put the idea into Eve’s mind. Unfortunately, this began the inability for humans to withstand their desires. There comes a point in life where you abandon your morals and beliefs and let your inclinations take over. Over time, beginning with the fall of mankind, the tendency for humans to relinquish their responsibilities has become more
The practice of science should always be undertaken with precautions to guard against against one's own prejudices. In scientific inquiry, the search for an absolute, objective truth is not obtainable since the interpretation of empirical data is based on factors more that the data itself: science relies on shaping principles which are as varied as there are scientists. This means that two scientists looking at the same data are likely to come up with different theories based on the philosophical, personal or even societal non-empirical inclinations which determine how they interpret data. It is, therefore, better to view science as progressive discourse that must constantly question the so called ‘authoritative texts and works.’ Rather than idealize science as the ultimate source of knowledge, it is important for scholars to recognize the limitations of scientific inquiry, and seek to acknowledge and address them. Still, science has provided many solutions and benefits to humanity despite the limitations.
Our knowledge is indeed an interpretation of our experiences and facts that we have learned or acquired throughout life. Nonetheless, it is impossible to have a full knowledge of everything or to, at least, try to know everything because knowledge is so broad and extensive that it makes this task quite impossible. Therefore, we store our knowledge in structures so we can navigate through it. It is important to have in mind that there is not absolute knowledge because the acquisition of it is also biased by our different ways of knowing such as emotion and reason. Thus, this statement is to a large extent true that our knowledge is a collection of scraps and those new fragments that are found can alter our entire design of our knowledge. For example in natural sciences, theories and laws of physics, biology, and chemistry can modify the way that we explain natural and artificial events because our world is in constant change, so does technology, which leads scientists and researchers to new finding, this might complement the knowledge that we already know or it might also change it drastically. Furthermore, in history new archeological findings can contradict and ultimately alter our formal conception of the events that have happened in the past. On the other hand, this statement can be somehow not truth, in a small extent, because regardless of new findings, these, so called, new information can be limited to the public thus not leading to an open overview of the subject. For instance, in history, new archeological findings are limited to the public thus they are not fully aware of the situation and past events that might have happened. While, in natural sciences is different because the issue relies on the people who keep believ...
It is quite normative to assume that all contribution towards the pursuit of knowledge be of some benefit, else we would not consider it. However what happens if a new discovery holds knowledge that is of more use then the present knowledge, do we accept that progress has been made and thus reject previous information? For this to happen the “new knowledge” which we can define as the most recent knowledge must have changed in a more cohesive manner the way in which we understand a specific factor. This would allow us to accept the new knowledge instead of the previous one. In natural science where the physical world is studied, knowledge can be said to be in constant change. For this reason we see research in this field act like a chain, where new discoveries always build off of prior analysis. Therefore, to what extent can it be said that knowledge is discarded in the “tomorrow”? For the purpose of this essay we will define “to discard” as the act of disposing knowledge because it holds no use. In ethics were a universal set of moral codes is presented what we view as being “wrong” could have possibly been an orthodox in previous decades. Thus, in order for it to change the values of an entire society must be altered. Having an understanding of what previous generations believed offers a wider insight to our past and forewarns the consequences of certain actions. Is it therefore right to assume that prior information should be forgotten if proven inaccurate? It must be considered that though knowledge changes, it does not necessarily imply that it is no longer considered.
...r it becomes to discard. The fact that there is the possibility of knowledge getting discarded suggests that perhaps it should not have been accepted in the first place. This begs the question: is knowledge accepted too easily? More often than not, one requires an adequate amount of evidence and facts to accept something as true. However, sometimes there is no evidence and it is impossible to prove something true, yet it is still accepted as knowledge, as is in the case of many theories. This occurs mostly in the sciences, because many times it is difficult to substantiate scientific knowledge. In order to avoid this never-ending cycle of accepting and discarding knowledge, perhaps the standard of accepting knowledge as true should be raised. But sometimes when something is proven false, it leads to finding the truth, so maybe the standard should remain where it is.
Albert Einstein said, “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” This new manner of thinking should be based on pre-existing knowledge. This pre-existing knowledge is necessary because it is the catalyst that pushes the human race forward, making us want to discover more. Trying to discover completely new knowledge would not yield the same results. Basing your research off what you already know allows you to compare the new data that you collected to the old data that is already present. If you discover something new you will have nothing to compare it with. This does not allow you the luxury of seeing if what you discovered was an improvement. This essay will examine how important it is to discover new ways of thinking about prior knowledge than it is to discover new facts. I believe that using prior knowledge to push discovery is much more important than trying to discovers new data or facts.
I have interpreted the key aspect of this essay question as evaluating the extent to which knowledge can be obtained, despite possible problems of bias and selection. First of all I would like to give my own personal definition of bias and selection to make clear my interpretation of what these two words mean. Bias is a tendency to give an opinion that disregards any other possible alternatives. Selection is the process by which one decides what information should be included and what should not. Already by reading these two definitions one can see that they can pose a possible threat in obstructing our acquisition of knowledge. However, we must not discard a source that contains aspects of bias or selection as useless, as is this not a form of gaining knowledge in itself?
In order to establish an understanding of the world, we rely on ways of knowing to organize and establish information. Each of the ways of knowing play a role in the information an individual deems as true and takes as knowledge. This process creates differences in the knowledge accepted by individuals and also creates discrepancies in knowledge. We need to understand how the ways of knowing may limit our perspective, our ability to interpret information, and the pursuit of knowledge, looking specifically at science as an area of knowledge.
Knowledge has a preliminary definition which is that it is justified true belief. Due to its dynamic nature, knowledge is subject to review and revision over time. Although, we may believe we have objective facts from various perceptions over time, such facts become re-interpreted in light of improved evidence, findings or technology and instigates new knowledge. This raises the questions, To what extent is knowledge provisional? and In what ways does the rise of new evidence give us a good reason to discard our old knowledge? This new knowledge can be gained in any of the different areas of knowledge, by considering the two areas of knowledge; History and Natural Sciences, I will be able to tackle these knowledge issues since they both offer more objective, yet regularly updated knowledge, which is crucial in order to explore this statement. I believe that rather than discarding knowledge we build upon it and in doing so access better knowledge, as well as getting closer to the truth.
Technology has advanced to the point where it touches our lives in nearly every conceivable way-we no longer have to lift a finger to perform the most trivial tasks. The wealth of information and science we have learned in the last few centuries have made our lives easier but not always better, especially when concerning civilization as a whole. Ibsen, Freud, and Vonnegut argue that human values have not kept pace with knowledge's unceasing expansion, which has become an anathema for the individual person and deleterious to society's delectation, albeit without people's entire comprehension.