Knowledge Measurement Essay Example

"The quality of knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it."

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Knowledge includes the skills, expertise, facts that a person builds from education, evidence, experience or observation. People commonly acquire knowledge from books and media. The quality of knowledge, therefore, is how relevant this set of information and awareness is to the present challenges in society and the accepted facts. Through understanding current knowledge, one is thus able to discover new avenues to disprove or reinforce them. Disproved knowledge thus diminishes in quality, and the reverse is true for enhanced knowledge (Kottler, 13). Public acceptance of knowledge means the masses agree that that information is factual.

The best measurement way is the parameter from which an observer may examine to determine that the piece of knowledge is good; in this case the number of people accepting the knowledge as fact. In this Essay, I discuss why the quality of knowledge is best measured by the number of people that accept it. I chose this topic because as controversial as it may appear, it stirs proper reasoning and organization of facts, research and full consideration of other people's opinions.

Given the varied amount of knowledge in the modern world, and types of campaigns, advertising, and education that people interact with, knowledge being accepted by many people may enhance its quality. I explain this stand through exploring two areas of knowledge; ethics and religious belief systems. For example, the belief that there is supernatural being (God) is accepted by many Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, and thus one who has a proper understanding of the religious systems indeed has quality knowledge.

A counterclaim to the above subject would be to say that the quality of knowledge is best measured by the degree to which the masses accept and approve of its results. Possessing quality knowledge enables a person to solve some of the issues that trouble our modern society. These problems include hunger, illiteracy, and health. Suck knowledge endures the test of time and reasoning, and finally get accepted by masses because of the results that they generate.

The results inspire more people to test the knowledge, explore and even apply it in other real-life phenomena. Thus, acceptance of knowledge is subjective and depends on the amount of evidence available and how that evidence is presented to convince them.

Many factors determine the acceptance of knowledge. First is trust. Knowledge gets more accepted easily when the audience trusts the first person they get that knowledge from. Secondly, the environment also influences knowledge acceptance. If one grew up with religious parents, it is likely that they will easily accept religious facts faster than one with atheist parents. Education is the most important influence of the kind of knowledge accepted by a particular type of people. People who school in the same schools and colleges tend to have related sets of knowledge (Woolman, 57). A person's education is affected by socioeconomic factors like parents' employment and income; which means socioeconomic factors indirectly influence knowledge acceptance.

As an area of knowledge, religious belief systems present a complex cascade of facts, emotions and striking variances. Not everyone is religious, and even the religious are starkly at odds about their belief structures. They have different theories about the earth's origin and the means to eternal life. Nonetheless, they converge at the belief that a superhuman created the world and its contents and controls the universe. Most religions have followers to attach to them with extreme devotion, which means they will go out of their way to spread their knowledge system. But, because of this diversity in just one sector, it gives us an opportunity to study, understand and experiment with different schools of thought and reasoning.

When the religious teaching person receives interacts with their personal knowledge, they form a knowledge system that determines the choices they make and how they interpret their environment. Religion makes a person to accept collective knowledge into their mind. Thus, "I know" becomes "we know." The change may come slowly and gradually, but in some instances as dramatic sudden shifts in knowledge.

By use of publications, preaching and media, religions spread shared knowledge fast. Thus, if an individual develops the capacity to interact with religion and understand the underlying facts in depth, that kind of knowledge is of good quality. It is because he gets understood and understands many people comfortably and can use the knowledge to solve some societal problems like poverty and illiteracy (O'Brien, 46).

Ethics, as an area of knowledge, helps to strengthen belief systems. Ethics is the branch of knowledge that studies the moral values governing or impelling moral conduct and living in societies. The field of ethics is special because it is not studied or taught, but morality is expected of everybody. It is also unique because although no one is a master of morals, most people think they are. Further, everybody, on numerous occasions in life, stops and ponders on how to live morally and correctly. This includes life at work, in church, in school etc. Ethics, thus, form the basis of most of the judgments we make. In today's world, some people may misinterpret morality as to mean that to be moral; a person has to go against their natural and sexual longings to appear pure, failure to which they feel guilty and rejected. However, morality involves living in peace among one another and being a neighbor's keeper.

Thus, if a person masters the ethical values that various societies accept, that knowledge is quality because he will easily tell "what is good" in every scenario. The results of his decisions will lead to innovative measures to solve problems like terrorism and crime. The exceptional talent of understanding what most people agree with gives on the ability to make the people believe new ideas. This skill will facilitate further and fast spread of knowledge to enhance its quality (Siemens, 31).

For knowledge to grow there needs to be a way of knowing it. There are called the Ways of Knowledge (WOK), and an example is by Faith. As a WOK, faith has a lot of controversies. First, it is because some intellectuals view faith as a barrier and blinding factor to accurate knowledge acquisition. The foregoing, known as bling faith, is not the true definition of faith. Faith is a set of assurances, acceptances, allegiances, and assumptions that inspire hope, love, and loyalty to a particular structure of knowledge.

Faith plays a central role in knowledge achievement as all other Ways of Knowledge faithfully believe in their assumptions without which they are null. Also, the act of possessing knowledge is Faith since one simply believes that they know. Faith is all-inclusive as it does not confine to one set of beliefs and does not exclude any type of beliefs. It accommodates emerging knowledge and helps in its spread; because faith involves emotion, it works so well in spreading facts. Faith uses language to nourish, sharpen, polish, and awaken people's knowledge.

Logic and evidence are minimal in Faith, but the importance of cooperation, morality, and love is quite dominant (Evansand & Nicholas, 76). Knowing knowledge through faith happens mostly in religion and, as previously explained, this knowledge builds talent and problem-solving skills in an individual when it interacts and reconciles with personal knowledge acquired via education and experience.

Thus, measuring knowledge by how many people accept it is a viable method because of the comfort, authenticity, and confidence that it creates in that set of information. Contrarily, someone would argue that that mostly, it is the minority that accepts the truth. But, looking carefully, any falsehood that spreads is sooner or later thwarted by a revelation. Thus, if knowledge becomes harmoniously received across populations, it is of good quality. Lastly, it is from accepted knowledge that new knowledge and better version of the present knowledge emerge, thus ensuring everlasting growth in societal wisdom.

In conclusion, knowledge is dynamic and it essential that people accept that character. When through religion and ethics, some knowledge spreads; it is good when it is approved by many, because that makes it get more understood, explored and improved on. Such independent reaching of conclusions makes the knowledge acceptance process more practical. Hence, the quality becomes better when more and more people learn of, examine, approve, and accept it. Measuring knowledge by acceptance also allows a person to learn and try other methods or measuring it. Lastly, for a big number of people to accept knowledge, they must have learned it from a different source, thus reinforcing its authenticity.

Works Cited

Evans, Ian, and Nicholas D. Smith. Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2012. Print.

Kottler, David. Seven Ways of Knowing. Lanham, Md: Hamilton Books, 2010. Print.

O'Brien, Dan. An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006. Print.

Siemens, George. Knowing Knowledge. Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified, 2006. Print

Woolman, Michael. Ways of Knowing: An Introduction to Theory of Knowledge. Melton, Vic: IBID Press, 2006. Print.