Sample ToK Prescribed Essay from George Spanos @ Washington-Lee High School
From 2004-2005 Prescribed Title List
1st Draft of a Practice Essay
Title 1: For some people science is the supreme form of all knowledge. Is this view
reasonable or does it involve a misunderstanding of science or of knowledge?
A person with diabetes relies on insulin to live, and thus on the scientific backing
behind using insulin as a medical treatment. A person born in the year 500 is taught that
the Earth is flat, and relies on self-awareness and scientific authorities. Clearly, it is
known today that the Earth is not flat. However, at the time the scientific authority
deemed it as a fact. On the other side, many people today find relief from diabetes by
using their insulin. In this case, science is practical and proven. Nevertheless, to say
science is the absolute form of all knowledge is to put knowledge incorrectly into an
absolute terminology, where as of today, it does not exist. Science is not the supreme
form of knowledge, but instead a good form of “knowing that” and “knowledge by
description” insofar as it is relevant to its use (Abel, 19). In contrast, other forms of
knowledge, embodied by “knowing how” and ‘knowledge by acquaintance” exist, and
lacking the precision needed to be called scientific, at times seem to surpass science in
their truth-value and usefulness (Abel, 19). Furthermore, knowledge of one’s emotions,
especially aroused by art, is something everyone is personally certain of, yet it lacks the
usefulness that science may contain.
The great physicist Stephen Hawking himself is unsure whether or not the theory
of relativity, the flagship of modern theories, is leading science to the correct unifying
theory of science. This doubt reveals the uncertainty which science is based upon.
However, even with uncertainties, science has allowed us humans a great and powerful
existence. We have the power to store 40,000 songs on a thin piece of metal and glass.
