To What Extent Do We Need Evidence to Support Our Beliefs

To what extent do we need evidence to support our beliefs in different areas of knowledge?

Natural science reflects on understanding the world in naturalistic approach but also obeying rules or laws of natural origin. Natural science is also used to distinguish those fields that use the scientific method to study nature from the social sciences, which use the scientific method to study human behavior and society. Human science is investigating the human life and human activities via a rational, systematic, and verifiable methodology. We consult natural sciences when we want to know something about the natural world. Science provides facts, but those facts can be falsified. Science is reliable, precise, objective, and testable and can be self-corrected. Human sciences are consulted when we want to study human behavior (human mind, customs, human society, etc). Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which deals with knowing what is right and wrong, good and evil, etc.

Believe can be true or false. Believe is an attitude of mind, but we need it before we can claim to know anything. Individuals believe things because of the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition to be true. We tend to internalize the beliefs of the people around us during childhood. Physical trauma also alters a person's beliefs. ” When you want to believe in something you also have to believe in everything that’s necessary for believing in it” (Ugo Betti). An individual can not believe in something and not believe in the verification that leads to it. A false belief is not considered to be knowledge. A truth that nobody believes is not knowledge, because in order to be knowledge, there must be some person who knows it. Beliefs can be commendatory or can be an existential claim. Comm3ndaory is where an expression of confidence in a person or entity, as in “I believe in his ability to do the job”. Existential claim is to claim belief in the existence of an entity or phenomenon with the implied need to justify its claim to existence. It is often used when the entity is not real, or its existence is in doubt.” He believes in witches and ghosts” or “many children believe in fairies”. There is also a delusional belief whereby delusions are defined as belief in psychiatric diagnostic criteria. Human beings’ belief systems don’t always work according to evidence. Belief is made up of many different variables which affect people and so, many times, someone can very easily believe something if it is imbedded in their belief system with very little evidence.

Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of a statement. When evidence is given, the things are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth. In science evidence is build up through observations of an incident that occurs in the natural world, or which is created as experiments in a laboratory .Scientific evidence usually goes towards supporting or rejecting a hypothesis. In law, to believe something, evidence is important.

Human science argues that life would be impossible if people didn’t behave in a more or less predictable way. By introspection humans need solid evidence to believe something. Solid evidence is evidence one can perceive (hear, see, touch or smell). Because our brains continually interpret the sense data they receive, some psychologists and philosophers claim that the old adage: Seeing is Believing should be Believing is seeing (ways of knowing an introduction to the theory of knowledge Michael Woolman Pg. 20). If you don’t believe you aren’t going to see witchcraft then you won’t see it, but if you believe you’re going to see it then you are actually going to see witchcraft. Our brain uses information it already has to interpret what you see and feel and hear and touch and smell. This interpretation can easily distort the ‘reality’. The ways our brain filter information from our senses are: 1. through your past experience 2. Through social and cultural conditioning 3.Through spatial familiarity, 4.Through our biological limitations 5.Through our existing learning structures, 6. Through seeing what is not there 7.Through our dependence on language, 8.Through filtering, 9.Through self perception.

In religion where religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, evidence is not really needed. Strong faith is needed because faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. People believe there is a god through strong faith. They are absolutely convinced there is a benign god that will give them life after death in heaven. They are also convinced that god will also give them conscience and a sense of morality, a sense of what is right and wrong, good or evil. Their belief that killing people is wrong is based on their belief in god.

In science we need scientific evidence to support our belief in a scientific theory or hypothesis. Science is a way of knowing. The scientific method allows us to base our beliefs on evidence rather than faith.

Science has at its core the continuous alertness of scientists examining evidence they collect about the nature of the natural world and ruthlessly applying logic to any analysis of that evidence. We assume the facts science gives us are true and justified. Science uses scientific methods. Other disciplines model their claims to know on ‘the scientific method’, seeking to achieve the status and certainty of natural science (ways of knowing an introduction to the theory of knowledge Michael Woolman).

The scientific method is a combination of induction and deduction feeding back upon the other. Induction is taking information from our senses and producing general statements about our world. For example: we observe that fire burns our fingers and conclude that fire is too hot to touch. Deduction is taking a general principle about the word and deducing what will or should happen in particular instances. Thus working from the principle that fire is too hot to touch, we deduce that putting a foot in fire causes burns and pain.

Many times, although there is evidence disclaiming someone’s belief in the natural science, their beliefs which have been created through other ways of knowledge that are not through scientific evidence are strong enough to maintain this belief and also many times people disregard the evidence which proves one’s belief wrong. It is psychologically very difficult to accept that something which has been taught to be the right answer is in fact wrong.

There are people who believe that there is a god out there, and there are people who believe that there is no god out there. As an agonist, I believe that there is not enough evidence presented by either side to take a position. Do i have evidence to support my belief? Can evidence support a knowledge claim? Or can we have belief without supporting evidence? I propose that evidence is a vital component to supporting a belief no matter the area of knowledge.

By: Manase Sello