To what extent do we need evidence to support our beliefs in different areas of knowledge?
The Essence of the Q: You'll no doubt fix yourselves on three key words in the Q - 'evidence', 'support' and 'beliefs' - and rightly so. These are fundamental words in TOK and provide the foundation of all our analyses of knowledge and how it works in our world. Before we explore the Q, remember that the choice of AOKs to limit your answer is up to you - choose a minimum of three and a maximum of four, depending on your word count. The main job of the essay is to balance your approach to the issue of 'evidence'. Evidence gives us a reason to believe something; it gives us a range of facts on which to base our beliefs; evidence may be presented as a way of testing our beliefs. Evidence might also give us good reason to state our beliefs in the form of knowledge. We'd like to think that all our beliefs have firm, rational grounds, but is it always like this? We hold uncountable beliefs on a range of things, some are strongly held beliefs, some are weakly held ones. Some beliefs might be uncomfortable, some are prejudiced; some might be crazy and irrational and others might be used as a basis of your life. Is it the lack of evidence that makes them weak or irrational? Is it your upbringing that makes some of your beliefs crazy? When you explore each AOK, ask yourself what counts as evidence in that field. For example, would you base a Medical decision on a 'gut feeling' about a patient's condition? You will need to explore how the different WOKs help or hinder the search for, and use of, evidence and thereby question the status of our beliefs. You'll also need to explore how the different perceptive filters affect our beliefs: personal bias and prejudice have a part in supporting our beliefs, as well as cultural differences. Think about this word 'support': it is linked to 'justify', 'verify', 'falsify' and by analogy to the words 'underpin', 'foundation' and 'grounds'. If we take away the need for evidence, do we lose the grounds on which our beliefs are held? Where would it leave us if we had no evidence or grounds for our beliefs?
Knowledge Issues: To what extent must our beliefs be based on rational grounds? How far does evidence make our beliefs certain? How do we prevent evidence from being misused? In what ways do we gather evidence? How far are our beliefs shaped by cultural/personal circumstances? How do we keep an open-mind when considering supporting evidence? To what extent do our preconceptions, assumptions and biases drive our conclusions and shape the beliefs we hold?
Approaches: Remember Andy Fletcher's statement about Natural Sciences? Science has nothing to do with 'proof' and everything to do with 'evidence'. What did he mean by this? Can we extend this statement to ALL the AOKs? Surely not Mathematics which uses general axioms from which to derieve or prove by logical means the consistency of a theorum. Are all such Mathematical theorums logically consistent? Not according to Mr. Gödel. Now, you know that scientists often require mathematics to underpin their theories, but to what extent can a mathematical theorum be counted as evidence to support that theory? Historical evidence can be a minefield: the same evidence can often be used to support two different beliefs about the same historical event. Can you think of examples where this happens? How does it happen? How can we guard against it? Human Scientists often use surveys or polls or the personal testimony of people as evidence to support their theories. Think of experiments in psychology, anthropology and economics for examples and ask yourselves if this way of generating statistical evidence is feasible and open to abuse. This leaves Ethics and The Arts, perhaps the most subjective of AOKs. It's usually assumed that Ethical and Artistic issues are simply 'a matter of opinion'. Is this strictly true? Do we not need to know all the facts surrounding an Ethical problem in order to decide what to do? We might not make the right decision, but we nevertheless need all the evidence at hand to be able to choose a course of action. Where does this leave The Arts? Is this the only AOK which can do away with the need for evidence? You're allowed your opinion about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and I'm allowed mine. But what do we base our opinions on? What we like? How we feel? Our taste? And are any of these things really 'evidence'?
