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Is there solid justification for regarding knowledge in the natural sciences more highly than
another area of knowledge? Discuss with reference to the natural sciences and one other area
of knowledge.
Theory of Knowledge
May 2021
Word Count:

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 Is there solid justification for regarding knowledge in the natural sciences more highly than
another area of knowledge?
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The rejection of anything that is not empirical is engrained in the western culture and is taught in
our schools. Students from a young age learn to value empiricism and develop a predisposition to
accept empiricism and be non-receptive to other options when one is suggested to them. The
natural sciences rely exclusively on empiricism, that is empirical knowledge that is obtained by
the scientific method. If one is an empiricist then the answer to the prompt is that there is indeed
solid evidence to regard knowledge in the natural sciences more than that of the human sciences
due to the imprecise nature of data collection and replicability of experiments in human sciences.
If one is a rationalist, then he cannot find solid justification for regarding empirical knowledge
from the natural sciences higher than any other area of knowledge. Fields such as mathematics
and psychology rely more on rationalism than empiricism. Abstract mathematical concepts such
as group theory resulted in great discoveries in Physics. For example, mathematics led particle
physicists to discover positron, a positively charged particle of equal mass to that of the
negatively charged electron. Mathematics also made it possible for sending a man to the moon
and bringing him among other notable achievements. Therefore, a mathematician can easily
claim that there is solid justification for regarding knowledge from mathematics higher than
from natural sciences thus taking the opposite position to this essay’s prompt.

Human science is the study of human phenomena and human experiences. The fact that humans
experience life differently means that something that triggered a certain response in one person
won't necessarily trigger the same exact response in another. On the other hand, natural sciences
focus on the everyday phenomenon that happens throughout nature. Therefore, natural
phenomena are events that we can observe repeatedly in detail and are easily replicable which
allows for data collection to be more precise. While the precision may be irrelevant within the
context of this essay prompt, it is often used as a measure that supports the perceived higher
value of the knowledge emanating from the natural sciences.

The benefits to society derived from engineering one can easily argue that they are greater than
those derived by art. Art one can say is more basic, less challenging and definitely less useful
than either engineering or medicine. The results of engineering or medical knowledge are often
quite immediate and their benefits undisputed. Then one ponders, why the great Greek
philosopher Plato said that the highest form (and perhaps he also meant highest value) of
knowledge is empathy? It is probably because empathy forces us to suspend our egos and live in
another's world. Empathy is certainly not part of the natural sciences and had this essay’s prompt
been given to Plato, he would have argued that there is no solid justification for regarding
knowledge in the natural sciences more highly than in the arts or human sciences. Neither Plato
nor Aristotle, who often disagreed with each other, ever conducted any experiments as basic as
measurement of the time it takes for an apple to fall down to earth from the top of an apple tree
and yet the entire western civilization is built on Aristotle’s teachings as most of the modern-day
scholars agree on. The culture and the society in which we live in has had a significant impact on
us accepting that there is solid evidence for regarding knowledge in the natural sciences more
highly than in other areas of knowledge. This impact has created a cultural bias towards
empiricism. In the western culture such bias forces fields of knowledge such as psychology to try
to look empirical so that they too can become more respected and more widely accepted. The
field of psychology however, is mostly non empirical and this does not mean that this field is not

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 Is there solid justification for regarding knowledge in the natural sciences more highly than
another area of knowledge?
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useful and non-contributing to the culture and the society. It is not surprising however, that in our
society most parents today will advise their kids against studying psychology as a college major.

In the following paragraphs, some documented events will be presented indicating human
tragedies resulting from actions and experiments which were not rooted in natural science and
such presentation by the author is in support of the author’s view that there is solid justification
for regarding the knowledge in the natural sciences higher than other areas of knowledge. It is
the author’s belief that other areas of knowledge often require knowledge from the natural
sciences to stand on their own footing and without such external complementary knowledge
great tragedies and human suffering and loss can occur.

Prichard Colón was a professional boxer who was hit with an illegal shot to the back of the head
during a boxing match and ended up being permanently paralyzed afterwards. Terrel Williams
immediately started the fight with cheap shots and dirty tactics but the referee refused to
acknowledge them and only deducted two points when Prichard Colón collapsed onto the canvas
after suffering blatantly illegal bunny shots to the base of his skull. Prichard Colón fought to stay
alive whilst his boxing career was ruined because of these illegal shots. He also suffered from
severe brain damage and nearly a decade later after his injury is still in an unresponsive
wakefulness state. The brainstem is responsible for all the basic motor functions in life like
breathing and maintaining heart rate it is responsible for sending signals to the rest of the body.
Without this key part of your brain functioning the way it's supposed to you can be rendered to
the same state of Prichard Colon, that of an unresponsive vegetable. Due to the irresponsibility of
the referee in not acknowledging the dirty tactics that Terrel Williams was implementing against
Prichard Colon, an avoidable tragedy in the boxing world occurred and left a man functionally
disabled and ruined his career and life.

Roger Sperry, who wanted to find a cure for epilepsy, a seizure inducing disease, by separating
the two hemispheres of the brain, he succeeded in this initially in animals. He conducted an
experiment involving splitting the brains of cats and switching an eye patch covering the cats
eyes from one eye to the other, depending on which visual field he wanted the cat to use. Next,
Sperry showed the cats two wooden blocks with different designs, a cross and a circle. Sperry
put food for the cat under one of the blocks and taught the cats that when they saw the blocks
with one eye, for instance, the right eye, the food was under the circle block, but when they saw
it with the left eye, the food was under the block with a cross. Sperry taught the cats to
differentiate between those two objects with their paws, pushing the correct wooden block away
to get the food. His discoveries led him to the discovery that if the two hemispheres are not
connected they function independently of each other and events experienced are mutually
exclusive. He called this a split-brain and these animals were able to memorize double the
information.

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 Is there solid justification for regarding knowledge in the natural sciences more highly than
another area of knowledge?
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The first lobotomy performed in the United States was by Walter J. Freeman on Sallie Ellen
Ionesco. This process involved Freeman putting an ice pick above her eye and banging it through
her eye socket into her brain and then he cut at her frontal lobe. This process he believed would
cut away the excess emotions that caused Sallies depression. Instead it caused severe brain
damage and intense internal bleeding. This pseudoscience that was not backed by any data or
research happened at a time during which there were no psychiatric drugs to chemically alter the
brain and understanding of neurochemistry was limited so common mental illnesses were treated
with bizarre mystery cures like the lobotomy. Individuals were desperate for an answer for these
diseases and thus many questionable procedures were utilized to attempt to combat mental health
issues. However many of these procedures oftentimes failed and instead of producing the desired
end result, they destroyed countless lives. Walter J. Freeman conducted over 2,500 orbital
lobotomies in his career. 2,500 skulls smashed into with ice picks and 2,500 brains slashed and
mutilated.

In 1899 a German psychologist presented at a convention on hypnosis that he had turned a gay
man straight and this led into what we know of today as gay convesion therapy. Gay conversion
therapy consists of pseudoscientific designed to change the impulses of a homosexual from that
of a their natural attraction to that of societies expectations. Eugen Steinach was an Austrian
endocrinologist and he hypothesized that homosexuality or heterosexuality was rooted in the
testicles of a man. In turn this theory led to testicle transplantation experiments that involved the
castration of a gay man and the transplanting of “heterosexual” testicles. Another offshoot of
these pseudoscientific therapies was aversion therapy. Aversion therapy is esentially based
around the fact that a person can be disgusted by their homosexuality they would no longer have
same-sex desires. Chemicals to provoke the patients to gag and throw up when show
photographs of their lovers or gay porn and cross dressers.

In conclusion, continuation of human sciences and pseudosciences like those involved in gay
conversion therapy and lobotomies are dangerous because they are not rooted in natural science
whatsoever. Therefore natural sciences have more value and should be regarded higher because
in human science subjects like psychology, many principles are dependent on having an
understanding of neurochemistry and human sciences like anatomy and biology. If the human
sciences lack rooting in the natural world, they are thereby less credible and theories are more
likely to result in failure like gay conversion therapy and the lobotomy.

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“Remembering Prichard Colón – the Boxer Who Got Paralyzed after Getting Hit with Illegal Shots.”
EssentiallySports, 27 Sept. 2021, https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-remembering-prichard-
colon-the-boxer-w ho-got-paralyzed-after-getting-hit-with-illegal-shots/.

Editor, Steven EditorSteven. “My Lobotomy.” StoryCorps, 16 Nov. 2005,

https://storycorps.org/stories/my-lobotomy/.

“The Embryo Project Encyclopedia.” Roger Sperry's Split Brain Experiments (1959–1968) | The Embryo
Project Encyclopedia,
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/roger-sperrys-split-brain-experiments-1959-1968#:~:text=In %20the
%201950s%20and%201960s,brain%20in%20the%20United%20States.