“Human behavior derives from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge”. - Plato These three things from the quote really differentiate humans from other animals. Desire is what we live for and we have a purpose in life to achieve it and emotion is a way of knowledge, which means we gain knowledge through emotions. Knowledge is the theoretical or practical understanding of a topic. Knowledge is what guides us to the destination we desire. So without knowledge there is no desire for which we live. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In our life cycle two things never stop flowing: time and knowledge. From the time we are born until we die, knowledge never stops flowing around us. We acquire and share knowledge; we gain knowledge from different places like school, university, work, real life situations, experience, etc. With so much knowledge around us, the quality of knowledge is crucial as we need to choose the right knowledge for our needs. And there is a big question: who measures the quality of knowledge? This is where authority comes in, authority can be a person or a group of people who have power. There are different authorities for different areas of knowledge. The question waiting to be resolved is who decides the quality of knowledge: whether it is the majority of people or the experts or the authorities. This also leads to a debate between experts and non-experts. This led to my question about knowledge: “To what extent does an authority play a role in measuring the quality of knowledge derived from the natural sciences and humanities?” I have always been fascinated by studying the natural and human sciences as you learn how complex nature is in the natural sciences, for example, how our body and brain work and how humans respond differently to various situations; Therefore, my TOK essay title will be analyzed using natural sciences and humanities. My first claim that authority plays an important role in measuring the quality of knowledge is supported by the example about Ignaz Semmelweis and childbed fever. Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor who during his 2-year tenure as an assistant in obstetrics (related to childbirth) in a teaching hospital discovered the reason for the high mortality rate of mothers giving birth in the hospital. It found that women delivered by doctors and medical students had a much higher postpartum mortality rate of about 13-18% (due to puerperal fever or childbed fever) compared to deliveries by midwives and midwives in training of only about 2%. After knowing this fact, he wanted to find the reason behind the huge differences in mortality rate, so I will use reason as a means of knowing (WOK). The reason he found the higher rates among medical students and doctors was that before giving birth they were involved in autopsies, which is the handling of the corpse, and also in the post-mortem examination of a corpse which leads to the spread of infections. At that time he did not know the reason for the infection which was later discovered after the discovery of germs that spread the infection. After discovering this, he implemented mandatory hand washing using a chloride of lime solution, due to which the mortality rate was reduced to 2% and further reduced the mortality rate after cleaning medical instruments. His superior, Professor Klein, a member of the academic “old guard”, did not agree with Semmelweisand rejected his conclusions and gave a reason that the lower death rate was due to the hospital's new ventilation system. His work was revisited two decades after his death and was accepted and given credit. So, since Ignaz Semmelweis' conclusions were correct and the evidence was also not accepted, just as his superior who had authority or power did not accept it. His knowledge was not accepted because he had no power as he worked as an assistant. So here authority plays an important role in measuring the quality of knowledge, since his superior did not accept his work, it was not accepted and it was then accepted when another authority (group of scientists) revisited his work and considered germ theory. stating that Authority alone does not play an important role in measuring the quality of knowledge is supported by the phlogiston theory. This theory was proposed by Johan Joachim Becher in 1667; the theory stated that all objects that can catch fire (also known as combustible objects) all contain an element known as phlogiston. During the process of burning the element, phlogiston is released which causes the burned substance to lose weight as it loses phlogiston. He developed this theory thanks to reason and intuition. Because he wanted to find the reasons behind the combustion process, it led to his intuition of a substance known as phlogiston which he later discovered to be oxygen, so I will use reason and intuition as ways of knowing (WOK). In the early 18th century other chemists such as Georg Ernst Stahl agreed with the phlogiston theory and further expanded the theory by stating that the corrosion of metals was another form of combustion. He believed that metals in the air when converted to lime lost the element phlogiston, so they would lose weight of the substance. Further experiments, carried out after the discovery of oxygen made by Antoine Lavoisier, discovered that the substance after combustion would weigh more than before, which was Contrary to the theory of phlogiston, Lavoisier with one of the discoveries of oxygen discovered that oxygen it was the element always involved in the combustion process. In the 1800s, other chemists recognized the validity of Lavoisier's oxygen theory, and the phlogiston theory was rejected. In this example, the authority accepted the knowledge and it was also accepted by the people, but due to other factors such as progress in the time period led to the suspension of the theory accepted by the authority and other people. So, here authority alone does not play an important role in measuring the quality of knowledge. My second claim that authorities produce valid knowledge is supported by the Supreme Court's ban on eyewitness testimony in many countries. The United States Supreme Court prohibits eyewitness testimony in many cases. One of these involves Darrill Henry, convicted of killing a woman and her daughter in 2004 in New Orleans. The only evidence present for the investigation was the testimony of neighbors who claimed to have seen the accident. The Supreme Court did not allow the use of eyewitness testimony as it was deemed unreliable and also in Nebraska, another US state, a similar incident occurred where eyewitness testimony was not accepted and in Alabama, Georgia and Florida the federal courts have restricted its use. Since we use sense perception to gain knowledge, I have used sense perception as my way of knowing. The reason for this is explained by many theories according to which memory influences sensory perception and our memory is not reliable. One of these is psychologist Richard Gregory's top-down processing..