Bias And The Pursuit of Knowledge

 As humans, we apply our personal form of bias to everything we see, every interaction we engage in. Our individual bias is developed from the morals and values we pick up from authority figures as children, and from issues and events we respond to as adults. Our bias evolves over time based on our personal beliefs and can change when we are faced with a big life event. Bias is so ingrained into us that we hardly even notice when we are using it, which is why it is so hard to reteach ourselves if confronted with information that proves our bias may be wrong. But how does our personal bias affect us in our pursuit of knowledge? 

Our brains are wired to look for evidence that backs up our personal bias. However, this form of knowledge accumulation can lead to more and more evidence that stacks up in favor of our bias, but effectively limits our worldview and scope of how we perceive knowledge. While this seems like a negative outcome, our accumulation of bias can be a positive.

The way our bias affects areas of knowledge, such as ethics or history, will always be construed both positively and negatively. However, learning to deal with our inherent bias and applying it to how we acquire knowledge can change our learning process completely, leading us to be able to understand and learn from other cultures and world views more intimately and acceptingly. 

Bias positively affects ethical discussions as the different forms of bias help to craft a more accurate and effective solution when we encounter problems during our pursuit of knowledge. When discussing knowledge in TOK people have different points of view, and discussions can sometimes become heated. However, this is a good thing because arguing different points of view means that all participants can understand how other points of view see things and modify their own biases to fit the new information. Therefore, evaluating other people’s biases leads to an evolution of one’s own knowledge.

As humans we automatically feel the need to defend our opinions and biases to cement the idea that our knowledge is correct. However, these biases often become ingrained in us until it is the only thing we see as being ‘right.’ For instance, this issue occurs often between people with opposite political alignments. The issue of mask wearing in the United States is a good example of inherent bias. When we engage in debates and discuss how we have interpreted data to form our own knowledge with others, we should be advancing said knowledge to reflect the new data we have processed. When people continue to blindly follow political and social beliefs, ignoring new data and knowledge, we are unable to learn and grow as individuals. Evolution of knowledge is a positive development in the pursuit of both our personal and shared knowledge. It is often said that the more knowledge references and points of view considered when writing an informative piece, the more accurate the piece will be. The same can be said for the pursuit of knowledge. When considering how other people perceive information in comparison with the way you personally do, you are able to understand the world around you more accurately. 

However, bias can become an obstacle when it is discussed from the point of view of only one person. As we know, personal bias can cloud a story. So much data can be skewed when one viewpoint is presented. When we discuss bias from the perspective of multiple people, we can gather a more informed conclusion. Without representing an array of viewpoints any ethical discussion in question becomes narrower in view and biased to a negative extent. People have attempted to overcome bias in ethical proceedings by becoming as objective as possible, however in a way this can often make proceedings more biased. For instance, discussions of personal rights, such as abortion rights, can become limited based on the number of viewpoints represented in the discussion. If uninformed people are presented with one viewpoint, in this case either a pro-life or pro-choice viewpoint, they will be more inclined to believe and agree with the information presented to them at that point. This example could be construed as a milder case of refusing to understand others’ bias, but when people in positions of power have a similar mindset that is when our ethical and moral procedures become unclear and we need to question them. Ethical situations addressed with one general point of view can lead to disagreements and unrest that could easily be solved with consideration of different points of view.

Bias positively affects history as different cultures have different bias on historical events, and by learning about history in different cultures one can gain a better understanding of how actual events transpired. Knowledge was acquired in the past based on how scholars learned about history and how the bias in the recording of the history led to inaccuracies in the acquisition of knowledge of history. Bias in the recording of history can vary depending on region and culture, and the situational background of the group of people. Countries with more global influence (i.e., USA, China) have their version of history more commonly repeated or generally accepted because of the influence and power they supposedly have. The bias under which the knowledge is presented (based on cultural background etc.) can influence how everyone else gains knowledge. I am (almost) a dual citizen of both the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Growing up learning about world history from both the perspective of the United States and the United Kingdom helped me to form a more coherent opinion of the knowledge of past and present world events.  Being a dual citizen means that I can take knowledge presented under each culture (and therefore bias) and form my own opinions and conclusions. Understandably, learning about world events with a singular bias can cause a scholar to become closed minded, but learning about history from different points of view and comprehending fully that there will always be a bias and overcoming that bias through informed learning will lead to openminded-ness and a well-rounded knowledge base.

When information is presented as unbiased as possible there is a negative trend on student cognitive development. Students are not encouraged to think from a different viewpoint and therefore are slighted in becoming citizens of the world.  Despite the efforts to share knowledge from different viewpoints and biases it is an unavoidable fact that a lot of commonly reported and accepted history is told from the perspective of white Anglo-Saxon men, as history tends to be told from the point of the cultures that prevailed in conflict. Bias against countries that were conquered or otherwise invaded continues into history today because so much of “acceptable” society was in Europe and West Asia. Because this biased history is often so accepted worldwide the pursuit of knowledge that is the most truthful and pays homage to all aspects of human beliefs and sides in historical conflict. There are concerted efforts in schools nowadays to provide information in an unbiased way, which is detrimental to student development. In my school there are times in history class where information is presented objectively. Students copy the information down and there is no discussion of how or why history is presented in that way or how history could be more accurately conveyed. This is a setback in the acquisition of knowledge because students do not get to analyze why an event occurred or understand the bias behind how their peers or teacher views the knowledge in question. There is a reason why children learn in an environment together- their peers provide a place to trade ideas, build social connections, and develop cognitively. If discussions do not occur then knowledge is not traded, and knowledge does not evolve as effectively. Discussion is a thing that should be fostered and encouraged.

Our entire lives, we will be accumulating knowledge, sharing opinions, and communicating with each other using our personal bias. While the connotation of bias immediately suggests that bias is inherently bad, this is not true. Bias can supplement how we consume knowledge by influencing how we perceive said knowledge. While confining our knowledge to one bias can be detrimental and lead to narrow-minded thinking, accepting that we have a bias and overcoming it by being open-minded and willing to see things differently means the difference between being a student and a scholar. Bias in the pursuit of knowledge is especially prominent in areas such as history and ethics because of traditional proceedings. However, by challenging tradition we can change the view of bias and make into a tool that helps us learn, and in turn we can become better educated and better global scholars.