What Similarities and Differences Are There between Historical and Scientific Explanation - Essay Example

Theory Of Knowledge Essay: What separates science from all other human activities is its belief in the provisional nature of all conclusions Introduction The importance of science in human life cannot be described in words. Science was behind every human achievement. But it is a fact that a student who is doing a doctoral research in any subject would get a “Doctor of Philosophy” (Ph. D) degree instead of Doctor of physics, Doctor of chemistry or Doctor of history. This is because of the fact that philosophy is considered as the origin of every sort of knowledge in this world. During early days, it was philosophers who had explained the natural phenomenon and natural processes like thunder, storm, earthquake, rain etc. In short the fatherhood of knowledge in this world can be claimed by philosophy and in order to honor philosophy, we still awards doctoral degrees as Ph. D rather than something else. Scientific knowledge also has its roots in philosophy, but it is accepted widely as the genuine and logical knowledge at present because of its accountability and measurability. Scientific knowledge always addresses problems on individual basis. It formulates lot of hypothesizes regarding the problem initially which will later tested for getting accountability. Hypothesizes which lack the evidence from the scientific testing process will be rejected whereas hypothesizes which get accountability would be formulated as theories. For example, earlier people thought that the sun was rotating while the earth remains stationary. Later they concluded that earth is rotating while sun remains stationary. But at present it is proved experimentally that both sun and earth are rotating. Who knows what science will say about the motion of earth and sun in future? In other words What separates science from all other human activities is its belief in the provisional nature of all conclusions. Ways of knowing Human has different ways of acquiring knowledge like sense perception, reason, emotion and language/tone/symbols/nomenclature etc. Senses are the entities which help the human to arrive at certain conclusions or perceptions. For example, eyes help us to see something while ears help us to hear something. The combined effect of seeing and hearing will help us to perceive certain things. “Perception is the process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view” (Perception). For example, while watching a movie our eyes and ears are providing the signals required to perceive the essence of the movie. Moreover the emotions, language, tone symbols etc used by the actors help us to know more about the movie. In short we know things with the help of all the entities mentioned above. Natural and human sciences are different in their ways of knowing things and making conclusions. While human science depends heavily on the sensory perceptions to make conclusions, natural science will go for experimental evidences for making theories. In other words, human science will look for history to make judgments whereas natural science will never go for historical evidences for making conclusions. For example, some of the Muslim people have still doubt about the successful landing of human on moon. For them it is impossible for the human to land on moon because of the divinity their religion attached to moon. But science can never consider such beliefs in its account. It always relies on experimental evidences rather than the beliefs or historical evidences. Natural science uses induction and deduction method for arriving at conclusions. “Induction is the formation of a generalization derived from examination of a set of particulars, while deduction is the identification of an unknown particular, drawn from its resemblance to a set of known facts” (INDUCTION, DEDUCTION, AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD). For example we have seen many elephants with a long tail. From the above observation we can induce that all the elephants have long tails. Suppose Hilary had found some footprints at the top of Mount Everest. We can deduce that human life is present at the top of Everest also. “Humans are, arguably, less predictable and stable than the natural world, so the conclusions about our behavior should be more provisional than the conclusions reached” (Theory of Knowledge). The creator has created human as the wisest living thing on earth which helped him to work for improvement always. The anatomy of human brain is still unknown to the doctors or scientists. The superior functionality of human brain helped human to search for new things always. Human never satisfied with what they have or had. They always look for improvements. On the other hand same thing cannot be said of other animals. For example, a tiger uses a cave for its shelter irrespective of whether it is an ancient tiger or a present tiger. Nobody anticipate that a tiger may change its shelter in future also. At the same time human have made lot of modifications on his homes based on the developments of science and knowledge and will do lot of modification on his home in future also. In short, development is a continuous process as far as human generation is concerned and these developments always result in modifications of existing things or beliefs. Temporary nature of scientific knowledge Science never believes in making absolute conclusions. As per the principles of science, nothing is absolute; everything is relative. Even the concept of time is not absolute, but relative. McDoughall (2007) has pointed out that, time moves differently in different objects and different locations. For example, time moves slower on massive objects like the Sun or Jupiter and faster on smaller objects like our Earth (McDoughall). In some cases, science forces us to change our knowledge which was earlier put forwarded by the science itself. The concept about the flow of current electricity is a better example. Earlier science taught us that the current is flowing from the positive pole (anode) to the negative pole (cathode). But later science has realized that electricity is nothing but flow of electron and it is impossible for the electron to flow from anode to cathode. Science forced to change many of its theories even in the recent past For example; earlier science taught us that the molecule was the smallest possible matter of an object. Later science has succeeded in splitting the molecule into atoms and argued that atoms, not the molecules, are the smallest possible entity of an object. But the above belief was also not stable. Science succeeded in splitting the atoms into its components protons, neutrons and electrons later. Now science is trying to split even the protons and neutron using large hadron collider experiment which is going on at present in near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground (The Large Hadron Collider). Large hadron collider experiment is going on in order to find out a basic particle called Higg’s boson which the science believes that may unveil the miseries of life on earth. In short, science always searches for improvements and more clarity in its findings. Science may not be able to give an objective view about the world because of the immense complexities associated with the universe. For example, sun and moon which are located so distant from earth can influence the activities on earth in many ways. Sun controls earth and earth controls the moon. Then who controls sun?. Science has so far failed to answer the above question. In short, there are more questions which have to be answered than the ones already answered. Conclusions Even though we have discussed about the provisional nature of scientific knowledge, it doesn’t mean that science is not reliable. In fact scientific knowledge is the only reliable knowledge in this world. Absolute knowledge is not available on earth at present which forced us to rely on scientific knowledge even if it is subjective and provisional. At the same time some of the basic miseries about the life of human like from where we come and where we go are still unanswered by science. Such questions are addressed by religions and the answers provided by the religions about the life before birth and after death may have relevance till science unveils the miseries surrounding on life. Works Cited 1. “INDUCTION, DEDUCTION, AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD”. 25 January 2010. 2. McDoughall, Alan. 2007. “EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE”. 25 January 2010. 3. “Perception”. 25 January 2010. 4. “The Large Hadron Collider”. 25 January 2010. 5. “Theory of Knowledge”. 25 January 2010. Read More