We know with confidence only when we know little

WITH CONFIDENCE WE KNOW LITTLE BUT DOUBT INCREASES WITH KNOWLEDGE
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With Confidence, We Know Little, but Doubt Increases With Knowledge
Knowledge has, for a long time, been equated to power. Human beings need the knowledge to make even the simplest of the decisions, an indicator that indeed knowledge is the compass of life. Through it, we can gain a vision of the life we want and anticipate the different events in our lives. Through knowledge, man has been able to make significant breakthroughs that have made life way simpler. It has allowed the man to emerge as the most sophisticated, capable and superior species on earth. As such, it can be argued that knowledge is the primary factor that separates human beings from other species of living things in the world. The amount of knowledge people have varies from one individual to another. People who are more knowledgeable are very much respected by the members of the society compared to those who are less enlightened. Gaining more knowledge opens our mind to more questions and possibility. As we learn knowledge, we get a clearer understanding of how much we don’t know. More experience leads people even to doubt more, and it is through this doubt that we even develop more thirst for knowledge. This essay takes into consideration two areas of expertise, namely economics and physics, in exploring how knowledge serves to increase people’s doubt in certain things.
Knowledge is a great gift; it makes it possible for people to judge situations and tell what is right for what is bad.

It forms the basis of life and as such gaining knowledge is viewed by many being the primary activity that readies individuals for a successful life. Learning usually starts early in life, with children being guided by the society to gain knowledge about the different aspects of life. During these initial years of education, the knowledge gained is usually very general, with children getting to cover various topics but superficially. The young learners then get to pursue specific streams of courses as they grow and in the long run get to achieve outstanding skills and proficiency in the specific fields they are interested in. As such, it is through gaining knowledge that people can be classified as being competent or unskilled. Most of the time, people who are incompetent fail to acknowledge the fact that they are incompetent. In addition to failing to acknowledge their incompetence, they also reveal more confidence about their competency levels. This phenomenon, according to Justin Kruger and David Dunning, is termed as Dunning-Kruger Effect. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a clear example of how little knowledge often drives up people’s confidence as far as their competence is concerned. But with knowledge, people can gain a different perspective on life and their competencies and start acknowledging the fact that they know very little. Gaining competence through knowledge usually, have a negative impact on self-confidence because competent people end up assuming that every other person has the same level of competency.
Through knowledge, man has been able to have a better understanding of the society. The field of economics, in particular, has played an essential role in the understanding of the different aspects of the society when it comes to the sharing and utilization of various resources. Studying economics involves examining how people, businesses, and governments manage scarce resources. Economists are in many ways similar to scientists for they involve themselves in the developing and testing of theories. Despite economists being highly knowledgeable about the different aspects of managing the scarce resources, the ideas and arguments they present vary from one to another. This has given rise to different schools of economics including behavioral economics, Marxian economics, Keynesian economics, market monetarism and modern monetary theory. The various schools of economics is a reflection of the different ideas that different economists have regarding several aspects of the society such as the role of the government, employment, individuals that make up the society as well as policy recommendations. The different schools were not developed by Leigh men, but by scholars who were highly knowledgeable in the field of economics. Have gained so much knowledge, the pioneers of the different schools of economics are likely to have raised doubts about the inherent ideas in the previous schools of thoughts. To this end, the scholars embarked on extensive research culminated into the formulation of new theories and finally new schools of thought. As such, it can be argued that the different schools of economics are a reflection of how too much knowledge leads people to doubt more. Had the pioneers of the various schools never doubted their predecessors, then we could be having only a single school of economics.
There has been a strong connection between the search for knowledge and doubt. It is because of doubting that people eventually seek to learn more. Equally, learning about something leads people to ask more question, a clear indicator of how more knowledge leads people to more doubts. Human beings don’t know everything hence has developed the need for certainty about the different things that make up the environment in which they live. This need for certainty forms the basis of man’s search for knowledge. As reflected in the different schools of economics, doubt usually initiates the thinking process. By doubting certain ideas that have long existed, people can come up with new and more coherent ides. But again, extensive knowledge of the pre-existing ideas is required for any tangible doubt to be raised. It is impossible to question something if one does not have even some basic knowledge of what they are about to ask. The development of the relatively modern schools of economics could not have been possible had the economists responsible for the modern schools lacked the knowledge of the previous schools. As such, it can be argued that with more knowledge, economists have over the years doubted some ideas and theories proposed by their predecessors. By doing this, they have been able to come up with new schools of thought.
Chemistry is another area of knowledge that has made a significant contribution to man’s daily life. This is a branch of science in which matter is studied. Studying chemistry involves examining the composition, properties as well as the structure of substances. This area of knowledge is often referred to as the central science as it brings together the different knowledge fields including physics, biology, and mathematics. Through chemistry, people can gain knowledge of the nature of chemicals as well as chemical processes which in turn allows them to gain an insight into the different biological and physical phenomena. One of the areas that chemistry is applied is the discussion of the origin of life. It can be argued that the source of life is more of a chemical problem.
In his discussion of how life came about, Darwin highlights how life has evolvedover time. However, Darwin’s account fails to take into consideration how life started. Over the years, chemists have dedicated their time to study how life on earth began. The most crucial question that chemists have sought to answer is in which ways did the primordial molecules come together to form strong and self-replicating chemical structures that were later subjected to natural selection as proposed by Darwin? The quest to find answers to this question has only led to more problems since many chemistry-based theories on how life started have been developed over the years. The quest to establish the chemical origin of life can be traced back to 1952 when a chemist at the University of Chicago, Stanley Miller, carried out an experiment that sought to show how simple molecules in the lifeless earth reacted to form biological molecules (MacLellan, 2016). Together with Harold Urey, Miller was able to reproduce a variety of organic and inorganic compounds from simple chemicals namely water, methane, hydrogen, and ammonia. Through this experiment, strong evidence for primordial soup theory of the origin of life was found.
Miller’s experiment resulted in the raising of more questions. The test was followed by the publication of the DNA structure by Francis Crick and James Watson. This book further encouraged the emergence of new theories on how life could have started on earth. In their discovery of the DNA, Crick and Watson were able to establish that life’s genetic code was closely linked to nucleic acids (MacLellan, 2016). This discovery only served to open a floodgate of questions as more scientists sought and are still trying to have a better understanding of the DNA and the chemicals that make it up (MacLellan, 2016). This analysis of the origins of life from a chemistry perspective also shows how gaining knowledge only leads scientists to be more doubtful. Finding a possible solution to the question of how life started has just but led chemists and other scientists to raise more questions which in turn has led to the established of more branches of science whose aim is to find answers to specific scientific problems.
In conclusion, Knowledge is power, and as people gain more of it, they become more doubtful. Human beings need the knowledge to make even the simplest of the decisions, an indicator that indeed knowledge is the compass of life. Through it, we can gain a vision of the life we want and anticipate the different events in our lives. Gaining more knowledge opens our mind to more questions and possibility. As we gain knowledge, we get a clearer understanding of how much we don’t know. More knowledge leads people even to doubt more, and it is through this doubt that we also develop more thirst for knowledge. In Economics, the gaining of more experience has led to the emergence of several schools of thought including behavioral economics, Marxian economics, Keynesian economics, market monetarism and modern monetary theory. In chemistry, as a knowledge field has also made a significant contribution to the current day life. Through this field, various theories on how life started have been developed, an indicator of how more knowledge results in diverse views.

Reference
MacLellan, P. 2016. The origin of life. [online] Education in Chemistry. Available at: https://eic.rsc.org/feature/the-origin-of-life/2000129.article [Accessed 10 Jan. 2018].