Human Societies and Knowledge - Essay Example

That which happens to Acceptable as Knowledge Today is at times Often Discarded Tomorrow Knowledge has alwaysbeen dynamic and has found a number of various fast shifting applications throughout the course of history. As man continues to make more discoveries pertaining to both himself and his physical environment, he has constantly been forced to change what is acceptable as knowledge, and develop new knowledge that essentially conforms with his new discoveries, theories and concepts. Back in 1917, Albert Einstein is seen to have introduced a theory in which he proposed that the universe was essentially static in nature. This theory was taken seriously by most astronomers and various scientists and upheld as being the acceptable knowledge. However, this theory has recently been proven to be entirely wrong and a new theory has been developed alluding to the fact that the universe is not static in nature. Throughout human history, development and civilization, this has generally been the trend, as the development of new knowledge is seen to constantly cause the old accepted knowledge to be discarded. This however begs the question of does new knowledge always happen to cause the older knowledge to be discarded? Does the development of new knowledge automatically cause the older knowledge to be considered as being useless? Human beings are generally able to gain knowledge by the use of various means such as the use of sense perception, language, reason and emotion. The gaining of new information in human beings is often seen to be so automatic that it is largely considered to be quite difficult for someone to be able to stop this process. It is by the acquisition of this new knowledge that humans resort to discarding the old knowledge in favor of the new knowledge that they happen to have gained (International Baccalaureate Organization 13-20). The incessant thirst and quest by man to gain new knowledge is seen to lend claim to the postulation that no system is ever completely understood, no picture is ever complete and there is no explanation that is ever sufficiently finalized. This fact is exemplified by the fact that our most established paradigms such as the Theory of Gravity are still seen to be referred to as being theories. This aspect is seen to convey the idea that this existing knowledge might, and will most likely eventually be replaced by a deeper understanding. As we continue to try and burrow deeper in an attempt to gain an in-depth understanding, we are able to constantly find a number of new patterns that serve to contradict the acceptable truth that we thought we knew pertaining to the system that we happen to be observing. While some of these new truths and details cause us to essentially fine tune our existing theories, they sometimes however force us to replace these old theories with a wholly new theory. Various historical discoveries are seen to constantly cause us to modify our currently acceptable human knowledge. Perhaps one of the illustrations that I find to be most interesting in the illustration of this aspect is the effect of the continuous discovery of new, and previously undiscovered human fossils. By the early years of the 20th century, the larger part of the world’s leading anatomists believed that the earliest humans evolved and developed somewhere in either Asia or in Europe. By this time, the fossil remains of the Neanderthal man had recently been discovered in Europe and there had also been some claims of the discovery of the fossil remains of the Java man in Indonesia as well as the Piltdown man remains in England. While these remains were seen to be quite primitive it was evident that they closely resembled modern human beings and it is this aspect that helped in lending credence to validity. However a fossil discovery in South Africa in 1924 was seen to critically challenge the acceptable knowledge and view of an Eurasian cradle for mankind. An Australian scientist working in Johannesburg received two boxes of rocks that had recently been blasted from a quarry mine and upon examining these rocks, he was able to discovered the fossilized remains of a human brain and its corresponding lower jaws and face. However, this discovery was met with widespread criticism upon its presentation in the journal of nature. Dart was criticized for having presented his discovery of the Australopithecus africanus without giving some of the more established anatomists time to take a close look at the remains. In addition to the remains being from the wrong continent, they were also criticized as being too ape-like. A number of additional discoveries made in South Africa of fossilized ape-men specimen that were similar to those that which was found by Dart helped to lend more credence to the claim of Africa being the origin and cradle of the human species, a claim that was seen to sharply contradict the existing acceptable knowledge and belief that Europe and Asia were the cradle of mankind. However, with the mounting evidence in support of this new discovery and the subsequent and, what I consider to be quite interesting, uncovering of the Piltdown man as being a hoax in the in late 1940s and early 1950s, even the most ardent of skeptics were eventually convinced that the australopithecines essentially happened to belong to the human family and that Africa was actually the true birth place of the entire human race. These new discoveries were seen to greatly contradict the already acceptable knowledge that believed that Europe and Asia were the origin of the human species. The discovery is also credited with dramatically altering the trajectory that was being taken in the human evolution studies. It altered were people sought to try and look for human fossils and where they expected to be able to find them. The discoveries of the human fossil remains in South Africa are seen to further confirm the fact that as human being gain new knowledge, it becomes quite necessary that they discard the old knowledge in favor of the newly gained knowledge. Nothing in human knowledge, nor in human evolution is absolute and written in stone, it is therefore critically important that we constantly keep a rather open mind and always be willing to accept new knowledge. Over the past centuries, human societies all over the world are seen to have been following a religious value system that greatly helped the human society to be able to function in an effective manner. The religious value system equipped the human society with a set of ethical values that helped provide essential guidelines on how the members of the society were to conduct themselves in their given responsibilities, the expectations that society had of them as well as how they should endeavor to interact with each other in their societal interactions. In most societies around the world it can be noted that the established traditional value essentially helped in emphasizing the importance of religion and religious values and as such, these traditional values shared similar opinions pertaining to some ethical matters such as deference to authority, parent-child ties, and the rejection of what were considered to be unethical practices such as euthanasia, abortion and suicide. In recent times, there has been a gradual shift in most human societies from the following of a primarily religious value system to a more humanist value system. Proponents of this shift are seen to argue that although most of the different world religions happen to hold similar ethical values, there are however a number of glaring dissimilarities that are considerably quite difficult to reconcile. They argue that humanist values are however quite non-sectarian and as such are able to offer a valid alternative to the use of a religious value system. The only way that people can possibly be able to come together and agree upon a set of ethical values is essentially by changing our very own individual concepts on how we see the world. Human societies the world other have been holding to certain religious ethical value systems that they all strongly believed to be essentially true. However, with the advent of globalization and the migration of individuals into different societies, it is seen to have become critically important for individuals to ensure that they discard the old acceptable knowledge pertaining to ethical consideration and adopt the new knowledge seen to be promoting the adoption of the internationally acceptable humanist ethical value system. Conclusion It is clear that humans generally tend to discard old knowledge in favor of the newly acquired knowledge and this is seen to often be done with very good reason. It can thus be theorized that it is important that we effect serious paradigm shifts if we are to be able to eventually got anything done. It is evidently quite conceit for people to believe that they happen to know everything about anything and in the event that someone happens to peddle something as being an irrefutable truth, this can be considered to be akin to the proverbial selling of snake oil. However, it is also critically important that we always try to ascertain the truth behind emerging new knowledge before taking it on if the new knowledge is to eventually prove useful as a tool that will help us in making sense of the world. Works Cited International Baccalaureate Organization. Theory of Knowledge Guide. Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire. 2006. Print. Read More