Davin Lama

001121-001

TOK - May 2013

IB TOK Essay

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence Christopher Hitchens. Do you agree?

Candidate Name: Davin Lama Candidate Number: 001121-001 School Name: Canadian International School, Bangalore School Code: 001121 Session: May 2013 Word Count: 1,600

Davin Lama

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TOK - May 2013

In Hitchens quote, he states, That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. From this statement, I believe that he means a person who believes something to be true without having any evidence for it can equally justify it as being untrue, as he/she does not need evidence to deem it so. Through reason, Hitchens is addressing a way in which one may approach matters of the unknown - areas where there may be a lack of enough evidence. However, evidence is not just gained through reason alone. Language and our senses play roles in gathering and assessing evidence as well. Ironically, Hitchens statement itself is being asserted without evidence, hence by its own terms the statement may be dismissed. However, the quote raises some important questions. What constitutes as evidence? Under what circumstances can something be asserted for without evidence? How can one know when enough evidence is present for something to be asserted, or even dismissed? I believe that Hitchens statement is true to a certain extent; however the level of this extent differs from one area of knowledge to another. By further investigating the extent of what Hitchens is implying through the realms of math and the natural sciences, we can help ourselves to better comprehend the statement and in reaching an understanding conclusion. Evidence can come in many different forms. An interesting aspect of evidence is that the same piece of evidence holds different values across different areas of knowledge. For instance, in the civil system of courts, an eyewitness testimony holds one of the highest points of evidence. However in the scientific community, an eyewitness account holds the lowest point of evidence. An example of the power of eyewitness testimony can be shown in the case of the murder of an American peace activist, Rachel Corrie. No one knew how she had died, but because of eyewitness accounts, it became clear that she had been murdered by a bulldozer driver, and this was taken as the truth (Four Eyewitnesses). In scientific cases, if one scientist were to claim they saw a an apple fly up and defy the laws of gravity, but have no other type evidence, then
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many people would disregard such a thing. In these particular examples, language and our senses gave rise to the evidence. These examples demonstrate how the same type of evidence can drastically differ in value among different areas of knowledge. But are we saying that language is not a valuable way of knowing for the natural sciences? For evidence to be valued in the area of science, the scientific method is used to collect and analyze evidence. If the evidence gained from this scientific method holds to be true, then the claims from the evidence are asserted as knowledge. Thus, language not being a valuable way of knowing in the natural science cannot be said to be true as the exchange of ideas is vital in this area of knowledge. I believe it is the format of the evidence which must be viewed when considering the evidences worth. Hence, to what extent may one assert or dismiss something when the format of all evidence can differ? However, even with science having such a systematic approach towards evidence and knowledge, there are still some things which are neither said to be false nor claimed to be true. These are simply put, areas of uncertainty. So how can one be sure whether to assert of dismiss such claims or ideas? As a child, the idea of life from outer space always interested me. To this day, scientists have no proof that life exists on other worlds, but the chances of life being nonexistent in the universe seems highly unlikely. This is an example of how something may be asserted without any evidence, as some people may believe that life exists in other planets, while there are others who do not believe so. One may state I believe, therefore I know, but simply because you believe something to be true, doesn't make it true. So where does one draw the line of what to dismiss as false and what to take as true when the evidence for both sides seems inadequate? Personally, I feel that this has less to do with the evidence we have and more to do with our lack in ability to collect the sufficient evidence needed. For instance, in the past people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, until the telescope was invented and great minds like Galileo and Copernicus were able to observe the celestial objects and became capable
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of proving otherwise. Hence, in the natural sciences, things which have no conclusive evidence as conjectured by the scientific method cannot be asserted as being true and must be dismissed until proven otherwise. Mathematics, another area of knowledge, is very constant compared to the natural sciences as what has been discovered hundreds of years ago still prove to be true and are applied to this day. Math is one of humankinds highest forms of reasoning. It is one of the more stable areas of knowledge as it offers definite answers to all questions in a logical manner. This can be seen through examples such as Euclidean geometry, which was invented in the year 300 B.C., is still used and applied to this day, and from a simple fact that the angles within a triangle always equal 180. These mathematical facts will never change. Startlingly, many of the founding principles of math are based on assumptions and limitations in this form of reasoning do occur. One case in which this is true is the continuum hypothesis. A conjecture which was formulated by Georg Cantor, it deals with set theory and the idea of the existence of infinite sets between whole numbers and decimal numbers (Continuum Hypothesis). The set of decimal numbers is a bigger infinity than the set of whole numbers, but are there infinities which exist in between these two sets? Kurt Gdel showed that the continuum hypothesis can never be proved false in 1940. However, in the 1960s, Paul J. Cohen demonstrated that the continuum hypothesis can never be proven to be true. This shows that there are unanswerable questions in mathematics, which is quite surprising as one would think that math is a subject that revels in logic. This is also demonstrates a limitation in Hitchens statement: What must one consider to assert or dismiss when the evidence seems to point in both directions? Having looked at these two areas of knowledge, it can be seen that the amount of evidence plays an important role in assessing what can be asserted or not; but what about

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situations where the amount of evidence present is not relevant? There are some types of assertions which this statement would yield a counter intuitive result for. For instance, the act of intuition and creativity is something that occurs without the use of rational or logical methods. Creativity is something that is not based off of much evidence, yet in many cases it has shown to solve problems. An example of such an incident occurred in the area of Chemistry, during the discovery of the structure of benzene. The structure of the benzene compound challenged many chemists and figuring out the structure was difficult due to its unique poly-unsaturated structure with only one hydrogen atom bonded to each carbon (Benzene). However in 1865, the German chemist Friedrich August Kekul published a paper suggesting a ring structure, which explained benzenes unique properties. What was astonishing was that Kekul claimed to have thought of the possibility of a ring shaped benzene molecule after having dreamt of a snake biting on its own tail. This advance in chemistry theory was made possible by Kekuls dream and goes to show that not all assertions of what is true can be made through evidence alone. However, we cannot rely on creative and intuitive thoughts alone. This method of knowing is much less reliable source and the negative potentials far outweigh the positive. There are no rules or boundaries which the ideas must follow like in of math or science, hence assessing ideas from this area would be difficult to do as rules would become subjective and differ from knower to knower. This would bring about the influence of bias. Nevertheless, the example does raise important questions such as: How can we know whether to dismiss ideas under the basis that they have no evidence if they work? To what extent can we rely on our intuition and creativity to be able to answer logical questions?

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Hence, as we have seen from our investigation into situations where one must assess evidence in the natural science to the limitations of mathematics to how our senses such as intuition can play a role in gaining of knowledge, one thing remains true: In the end, what one asserts as fact or dismisses as fiction, depends on you and your experience as a knower. Assertions of evidence seem to be much stronger in the natural sciences and mathematics where reasoning is a major way of knowing than in areas where creativity is used, but they still fall prey to limitations. Whether you agree with Christopher Hitchens statement or not, there will always be things that you will believe in which others will not. Whats more important than being able to agree or disagree with his statement, is being able to recognize the limitations of your own beliefs and understanding that you cannot know everything and that everything you do know will not always be right.

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~ Works Cited ~ 1. "Continuum Hypothesis." Wikipedia.com. Wikipedia, n.d. Web.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis>.

2. "The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog." Http://phl.upr.edu/home. The Planetary Habitability

Laboratory, n.d. Web. <http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog>.

3. "Benzene." Http://en.wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, n.d. Web.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene#Ring_formula>.

4. "Four Eyewitnesses Describe the Murder of Rachel Corrie." The Electronic Intifada.
Http://electronicintifada.net, 19 Mar. 2003. Web. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/foureyewitnesses-describe-murder-rachel-corrie/4460>.