Tok essay
Zaid khzouz
Grade 11 ib
12/11/2020
Science is a topic that has been argued for many years, some people say its reliable as it has its
proof, and others say science isn’t reliable as people can manipulate the evidence to support
their theory, accusing them of bias. Of course, people can have their own suspicions, however
when proper evidence is shown it’s hard to falsify the theory, some theories are built to falsify
theories, and this shows that science isn’t static, it changes. To what extent can science be
trusted, do cultural, or religious bias appear more often than not, this raises the question, to
what extent can natural science be trusted.
People trust science and justify their belief by saying that there is evidence to support
everything in science, however that statement is wrong, for example in biology the cell theory
states that “ cells only arise from pre-existing cells”, and this has always confused me and many
others, I have always asked myself, “if every cell came from previous cells, where did the first
cell come from?” , and no matter what scientists come up with it will always be a theory, and
people will always assume they are right deeming science unreliable for some people. Science
can also be bias when it comes from one region to another, some experiments were approved
in western countries, but weren’t aloud here in the middle east, for example gene
modification/ genetic engineering, it was allowed to be tested in the west, but not in the middle
east it was regarded as religiously unethical, as most of the middle east follow Islamic laws, and
modifying/ changing a persons genes goes against what god created. One type of bias that
scientists won’t be able to avoid is philosophical assumptions which count as bias as they
distort the development of hypothesis.
Science is trusted as people form a hypothesis, create a model to support it, then form theories,
and laws around this specific hypothesis. If a there is no evidence or insufficient evidence, the
theory is falsified and disregarded, for instance membrane structure that was given to us in
biology this year, the danielli and davson membrane structure, in which it was a lipid bilayer
evenly coated with proteins on both surfaces, this was late falsified in the early 70s by two
cytologists (study of cell structure), named singer , and Nicholson, they introduced the fluid
mosaic model, which shows not only that the membrane was only made by two lipid bilayers,
but also multiple proteins with certain jobs to do, and this is why Scientists usually follow the
scientific method which Is a six-step process to find a conclusion to the hypothesis, and was
created to belittle any possibility of bias, as even the scientist with the best intentions of
diminishing bias wont escape bias that they won’t feel such as cultural bias, and personal
beliefs, so using the scientific method will help diminish and belittle the bias.
In conclusion, science the reliability of science is up in the air, and it’s up to the person to
believe what they want, on one hand a lot of theories are still standing , and not ignored even
though there is un sufficient evidence, or un logical evidence , for example the cell theory,
which till now is considered right on peoples beliefs, and findings, and others were ignored, and
falsified, and also there are cultural, and religious bias, for example genetic engineering in the
middle east, hasn’t been approved in the middle east, but has been approved in other parts of
the world.