Given access to the same facts. how is it possible that there can be a disagreement between experts in a discipline? Develop the answer with reference to 2 AOK. This world is full of knowledge, information that has varied uses. In order to better understand knowledge we have characterized them into different domains. Each domain has its own pulls towards certain type of people and some individuals take it so far as to become experts in these domains. Define bluntly, an “expert” is a person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area. He or she is someone whose outlook is respected and considered accountable due to their vast involvement in and depth of knowledge with that particular area. Things become interesting when each knowledge area breeds multiple experts and even more so when multiple knowledge areas have multiple experts.
Life is not harmonious after all. Its interesting to say the least that there exists disagreement between experts both within domains and across domains, even when facts exist. When knowledge is set in stone, facts are the basrs of knowledge. Facts are things that are known or proven to be true. There should be no denying a fact. Nonetheless, there exists considerable disagreement between experts in a discipline, even after access to same facts. To begin with. one of the most explicit example of experts differing in their opinion is that of ecological succession in the Natural Sciences. Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. Between 1900 to 1960 the understanding of succession was dominated by theories of Frederic Clements. Clements believed that ecological succession was highly predictable and deterministic with a climatically determined stable climax community regardless of starting conditions.
Henry Gleason from as early as 1920s provided a contradiction. His model was much more complex and less deterministic. The main area where they both disagree is when gleasonian model suggests a higher role of chance factor and in denying the existence of coherent , sharply bounded community types. Here is the perfect example of two experts of their time debating a concept within their domain and disagreeing. The reason why they disagreed was based in the method their employed to attain their facts. Individually it is hard to disagree with their facts, but if there exists an inherent difference in the complexity in the avenue(ie. The method) to attain those facts, then perhaps disagreement can be understood. Furthermore, another clear example of expert disagreeing with each other even after being presented the same facts is found within the domain of religious knowledge system.
There are multiple examples but the split within the larger Islamic community is a particularly striking one. The Quran sen/es as a factually unbiased basis of knowledge for all muslims and the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad are said to be the ultimate words to be followed. Vet the experts of today and even historically. the many imams disagree on the so called ‘facts’ in the Quran. The Shias and Sunni disagree on what the prophet said about his descendants, who would carry islam forward after him. They too disagree on how the prayers should be offered, even seemingly small issues such as how many prayers were offered by the Prophet and how his limbs would be whilst praying. Here is a classic example of how facts might be the same. even written down as in the Quran but their interpretation causes conflict and disagreement. even in experts.
In conclusion. experts come in many forms and across many domains, experts like all of us thirst for knowledge, but what distinguishes them from the common individual is their intensity of the pursuit of this knowledge. Interestingly, to attain concrete information we need fact and experts across domain disagree with each others even when the facts they use to analyze information are the same. This is so because of the inherent differences in attaining facts and how one interprets both the attain of the fact and the fact it is. They say that the universe is expanding and going towards more chaos gradually well after all maybe disagree mimics that chaos and results in the expanding of knowledge.
