ipl-logo

Robust Knowledge Is False In The Mathematics Area Of Knowledge

1600 Words7 Pages

With each new discovery, our prior knowledge is either being further proved or disputed. Robust knowledge refers to knowledge claims that have withstood these constant challenges and have not been disproven, despite any attempts to disprove it. However, the claim that “robust knowledge requires both consensus and disagreement” is justifiably false to me, in certain areas of knowledge. I believe that this claim is entirely false in the mathematics area of knowledge but can be true in the natural sciences area of knowledge. The reason for my belief is that the claim explicitly states that “Robust knowledge requires both consensus and disagreement”. While this claim may be true, especially in the context of today’s political tumult where every …show more content…

I find that areas of knowledge based on sense perception often require constant consensus and consistent disagreement to ensure that the developed knowledge is robust. Alternatively, if the main way of knowing is faith, such as in religion or mathematics (believing in the closed axiomatic system), then there is no disagreement, yet the claims are irrefutable because they are based in faith, and as such, once accepted allow knowledge to be created and justified through all standards of truth. My response to this claim that “robust knowledge requires both consensus and disagreement” is that I agree with a modified version of this title, that robust knowledge from areas of knowledge based in sense perception requires both consensus and …show more content…

The reason for this difference is because the natural sciences are based heavily on sense perception which is a generally imperfect way of knowing. Sense perception, as a way of knowing, is heavily influenced by many other ways of knowing including faith, emotion, intuition, reason, and language. Any variation in these five ways of knowing can influence sense perception and create a completely different knowledge claim. This can include confirmation bias as well, especially in biology. If a scientist is stressed by upcoming journal pressures and has a hypothesis that they strongly believe in, and sees anything remotely similar to the results they expect, then their interpretation of sense perception may be very different from a scientist with no emotional connection. As a result, to create robust knowledge, a person’s sense perception must be generally accepted but still face dissent to ensure that the sense perception was not corrupted by other influences. When scientists were still trying to learn and understand the cell membrane, they developed multiple models to try and depict how the cell membrane was able to be simultaneously fluid and retain its shape. As I was learning about this in biology we first learned of the model was by Gorter and Grendel and they hypothesized the inclusion of bilipids in the cell membrane, due to their sense perception that there were lipids in the cell layer two

Open Document