Tok Essay

* Discuss the hierarchy of natural sciences have and evaluate if this is due to the scientific method.
You turn on the television and find a commercial were a man dressed in a white apron is talking about the benefits of a certain tooth paste. Would you believe what he says? Why? Society is nowadays giving a significant hierarchy to science. Everything explained by the means of science must becorrect. By science I mean knowledge ascertained by observation, critically tested, systematized and organized into a body. However, the real question would be why we consider science the supreme explanation. It can be claimed to be due to the complexity of the scientific method, although it already has its counterparts, or other characteristics of society that allow it to reach such level ofsignificance.
The scientific method consists in a body of techniques or steps for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous ones. We as a society believe in it as it is supposed to guarantee objectivity and success. As mentioned before, it counts with a series of steps that strictly have to be followed It all begins with the curiosity that characterizesa scientist and leads him to examine and record carefully a certain phenomenon with the use of his senses and objectivity. This is the step called observation. For example, a person watches how a paper and a pencil fall to the floor and realizes that the pencil falls much faster. This allows the scientist to create and hypothesis on the subject, our second step. By definition, a hypothesis is aneducated guess concerning a phenomenon and may be based on previous data or knowledge. Continuing with the previous example, our hypothesis may be that “every body with a bigger mass will fall faster”. This hypothesis has as a benefit that it may explain what has been observed before. Moreover, it will be necessary to examine it in a larger number and different conditions. This leads us to thenext step called experimentation. Basically, this is based on testing the hypothesis and proving if the studied phenomenon behaves as the hypothesis has predicted. So as to achieve good results, it should be done in a largest number of cases, a wide variety of conditions and variables should be controlled. Taking the same example, experimentation would be letting different objects with differentmasses to the floor, such as a pencil, a ruler or the same paper (but this time crumpled), in order to see if their mass affects the speed in which they fall. Finally, this last step will allow us to reach different conclusions. In this example, we realize that most of the objects thrown fall at almost the same speed, reaching the conclusion that the mass does not affect its speed. However, here wecan see how a new hypothesis is created: is the shape of the object what gives its speed? This is one of the benefits of the scientific method. It allows scientists to investigate over broad phenomenon and reaching answers they would have never imagined. Therefore, it is logical that people will trust in these steps as they should be followed with such an accuracy and care that reaching to wrongconclusions is extraordinary. Moreover, as it is carried out by scientists, that is to say, the experts in the area of investigating, people trust in their decisions. Besides, it is true that most of the knowledge we have nowadays comes through this method. Hence, society gives such significance to science as it trusts in the scientific method.
On the other hand, the fact that scientists are expertsdoes not exempt them from making mistakes either consciously or unconsciously. To begin with, it is true that the scientific method is carried out through perception. Hence, as perception is fallible, limited and subjective, scientists may not be able to examine the phenomenon correctly. For example, a color blind person will not be able to observe so effectively. Moreover, as perception is...