Can one be certain if a divine force, like God, or the Big Bang created our world, focusing on the

Joel Achenbach, the author of the article, “Why Do Reasonable People Doubt Science?” starts of by saying that in today's era the people often disagree with scientific reasoning. The world we live in today is so full of problems it's hard to tell what is real anymore. The decision is left to the individual to decide what to believe is true or false, and then how there going to put their beliefs into action. Achenbach later explains in his article that the scientific method pushes back all the opinions and unfolds the real truth.

Ironically just two years later I owned a pair of my own pet rats in highschool, I know that they are not the monsters that I was made to believe but smart, clean and loving animals when raised properly. Unfortunately this kind of fallacy is not uncommon, we all hold beliefs that are wrong but have not been challenged or confronted before. Carl Sagan, a prominent astrophysicist and professor, touches on these topics in his essay “The dragon in my garage”, In this essay he confronts the idea that it’s possible to believe something that to others is obviously false by constructing an imaginary dragon as an illustration. Though it is well known that dragons are not real, he uses this as a thought experiment to describe the misplaced beliefs that people can hold. In his example Sagan’s dragon cannot be measured for all intents and purposes besides rare physical manifestations of it’s power, yet people choose to believe it’s existence based solely off these small and refutable pieces of evidence. Despite Sagan’s effort to disprove this dragon does all he can to disprove this dragon, by coming up with a myriad of ways to test its existence yet it is unsuccessful as the dragon is always one step ahead of

The development of the scientific method in the late 1500’s to the early 1600’s was a crucial stepping-stone in the science community. The scientific method is based upon observations, hypotheses and experimentation. The concept is rather simple, and can be applied to many areas of study. Once an observation is made, the observer can make a hypothesis as to why that phenomenon occurs and can then design an experiment to prove whether or not that hypotheses is valid. Although the scientific method has been extremely useful in the discovery of various things from usages of medications to studying animal behavior, there are still those who question the usage of this tool. These critics claim that since

Imagine going to the doctor’s office and as you walk in, you see the doctor smoking a cigarette! The doctor continues to check you and gives you medicine that was made in the 1900s. Most people would agree that changes in scientific knowledge is for the best, but some people just won’t allow for change. For example, some people think that the Earth is flat, notwithstanding all the evidence put against them. As scientific knowledge changes over time, society has adapted to the new knowledge for the better. For instance, we have medical knowledge. If medical knowledge didn’t change, we wouldn’t know how to make new medicine. Some people like to keep to the older ways like smoking. Once in a while, there comes someone who won’t use any medicine

Press coverage of this letter led to a veritable avalanche of similar correspondence that resulted in the police investigation almost being brought to melt down. Yet the likelihood is that the person responsible for the murders was not the same person who sent this letter. It was believed by police officers at the time and the majority of modern day experts are unanimously in agreement, that the letter was the work of a Journalist.

     Recently, education appeared as the truth. Perhaps people in the science field and I wanted facts, proof for the truth. Charles Darwin had come up with the idea of natural selection and the theory of evolution in the 1800’s. The questions and answers offered by science are more plausible. Scientists struggle with these questions every modern day. Open-minded people question and look for answers. Science suggests that religious ideas are incorrect.

Is “theory” a contradictory scientific term? Many people define “theory” as a set of unjustifiable propositions, whereas others believe a “theory” is a “coherent set of principles used to explain a class of phenomena” (Kingsolver 208). The contrasting interpretation of “theory” results from the fluctuating amount of information circulating on this term. Although the word “theory” is a prime example of how people interpret ideas distinctively, people can develop new insights on their previous ideas or thoughts once they gain more knowledge from books or experience. Barbara Kingsolver, a biologist, conveys in her essay, “A Fist in the Eye of God,” that humans are divided over the acceptance of evolution and the scientific understandings of

Even though the official ruling on Princess Diana’s death was a freak accident caused by the divers negligence, there is evidence pointing to it being a strategically planned murder. Even now, eighteen year later, evidence is still being found on her accident and what actually happened that faithful August night. Now most of this information is dismissed because it was ruled an accident, but that does not mean that everyone should ignore it. This evidence is crucial to Diana’s last night n this earth. Most evidence is not looked at because some assume it is the work of conspiracy theorists trying to “bring down the Queen.”

There are many topics that science and religion have opposing views on and continue to debate. One of these subjects that has received a great deal of attention and has placed an enormous wedge between the two realms is the varying opinions concerning the creation of the universe. For nearly a century, scientists have explained this phenomenon with the Big Bang theory, whereas spiritual thinkers have long placed their faith in the Genesis creation account. Both submit valid arguments, however, it is ultimately up to each individual to decide which testimony to accept as truth and to consider if it is possible that both opinions could co-exist.

After analyzing the crime scene and gathering information, the Investigative teams has come to conclude that Queenie Volupides was lying and steps must be taken to learn more about Arthur's death.

To start off, we should acknowledge the change in scientific evidence. You could be a quick google search away from seeing what has changed and how it impacted our society. For example, it shows in recent studies that dinosaurs have feathers. According to “The Half-Life of facts”, “Scientist

In his article, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb claims that, “[The Black Swan] illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge.” Which means that if we receive one piece of evidence which deviates from the information that we have collected and claimed as true for a long ti then large amounts of doubt can and will occur in all information which we had claimed as certain in the past. Using the example that was described in the article, for millennia it was believed that all swans were white because millions were observed to have this quality and there was no known evidence of the existence of swans of any other colour. However, while

Unlike inductivists, falsificationists believe that there is no way to conclusively prove that a theory is true. Consequently, they will resist stating that they’ve proved a theory to be true. Instead, falsificationists will consider a theory to be true so long as it has not been proven to be false. Unlike the strict five-step process held by the inductivist account of science, falsificationists hold that scientific progress comes about “by trial and error, by conjectures and refutations” (Chalmers 60). In the falsificationist picture, theory change happens constantly, and this process is what constitutes scientific progress. “It can never be said of a theory that it is true, however well it has withstood rigorous tests, but it can hopefully be said that a current theory is superior to its predecessors in the sense that it is able to withstand tests that falsified those predecessors” (Chalmers

How many times have you said, “No way, I do not believe it!” It is our natural tendency not to believe in something that we have not seen with our own eyes or experienced it personally. There is a saying, “seeing is believing” which has led us to a world full of skeptics. We want proof so we are not gullible fools. Skepticism, or scepticism, as it was spelled back in the ancient times, was pondered by philosophers who tried unsuccessfully to figure out the thought process and how we gain knowledge. Philosophers gave deep thought to determine how we arrive at such true beliefs and knowledge of the external world. Three such philosophers were Rene Descartes, David Hume and Christopher Grau. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher in the early 1600’s; David Hume was a Scottish Philosopher in the 1700’s, and Grau an American philosopher Professor born in 1970. The timeline s important because philosophical views have evolved over time. All three men were from different eras, but they each explored, argued, and addressed the topic of skepticism from their philosophical view. This proves that they take the subject of skepticism seriously, just as we should too. There is good reason to believe that a human’s knowledge of the external world results from both a posteriori knowledge acquired through sensory experience and a priori knowledge which is innate. Descartes, Hume, and Grau through their personal views and skeptical

Knowledge can be accepted or refuted, hence what determines accepted knowledge? I believe ‘accepted knowledge’ is that which has been tested whereby sufficient evidence has been collected to support certain knowledge claims. However, it is important to consider times when knowledge has been refuted. Despite strong belief that we possess objective facts, through research and technological progresses, such facts become re-interpreted in light of new evidence and discoveries. Personally, discarded knowledge refers to theories or laws being dismissed as new-found information proves more accurate. However, knowledge can also be amended as it is evolves. Knowledge is often discarded or amended due to technological progresses or changing social trends. Taking both a natural and a human science in IB, I feel that knowledge is more readily discarded in the natural sciences whereas in the human sciences knowledge is amended as certain theories evolve. This suggests that knowledge is not static hence leading to the main knowledge issue which will be explored: “To what extent is knowledge within the human and natural sciences provisional?