Bonifacio, Ma. Patricia Therese C.

(11028408)
12, 2012
Intfilo V24
Quiz 2- Essay

March

1. Which is a more reliable foundation of knowledge: reason or sense

experience?
Reason is the more reliable foundation of knowledge than sense
experience because reason comes first before the many other ways of
acquiring knowledge. Without it, the subsidiary thoughts, ideas or follow
through actions wouldnt be possible. Not only that, but also because
reason is innate in every human being ever since they were born.
Presented with a situation before us, and even though its our first time to
be fronted with such, we know the possible responses to that particular
situation and even the result of each response because we have innate
knowledge about it. Moreover, it is also through reason that we are able
to pick out our best reaction to that situation. Which also goes that to
does who will never experience one thing, does it mean that theyll have
knowledge of it? Totally not true because we, as human beings that we
are, can infer and rationalize.
In reason, we dont necessarily know everything at once, or at all. But
we have knowledge of some truths in that particular subject, as part of
our rational nature. While in sense experience, we cant really say that
you acquire the knowledge of that material if you only experience half of
the act. Thus making reason as a more reliable foundation of knowledge.
2. Does Science give us truth?
Science is usually associated with hypothesis, experiments, theories
and laws. We have also believed that science has led us to new
breakthroughs and discoveries. But does this translate that science give
us the truth?
I say, that the truth has always been there- existing, though unknown
or unwritten. The role of science here is to verify whether what we or the
scientists has discovered is in line or is the same as the truth that there
existed unknowingly. Take Newtons discovery of gravity by the apple that
landed on his head as an example. The truth of having a force that holds
everything in its place was always there- it existed even before Newton
studied about it. It was present in the world but unknown to mankind.
And so, further experiments about this force were conducted thus verifies
the truths about that force which we now all know as gravity. From this, I
may say that the unknown truth could be the reason why there are
some experiments that fail, because what they aim to establish or the
process they used is not in line with the truth about that particular
phenomena. Say another experiment were all familiar of, planting mongo
seeds in different cups and one cup, cup A, receives sunlight and is

Bonifacio, Ma. Patricia Therese C. (11028408)

12, 2012
Intfilo V24
Quiz 2- Essay

March

watered daily while the other one, cup B, is kept in a dark room and isnt
watered at all. The general truth is plants need both sunlight and water to
grow. And through the mongo seeds experiment, after two weeks or so
we are able to verify this truth seeing that cup A will sprout and cup B will
be as its first day state. The activities done to cup A was in line with the
truth about plants needing sunlight and water, and so yielding the desired
outcome while cup B did not.
Take the meaning of a word commonly associated with sciencediscovery as in scientific discoveries. It means finding out or
ascertaining something previously unknown or unrecognized and science
discovers. Therefore even before science studies about certain
phenomena, as the meaning of the word implies and suggests the reason
for that being and truth about it existed already. It was through science
then that it was recognized, known and became subjects of further
studies. Which is another reason why we cannot say that science gives us
the truth.
Science does not produce the truth through its methods. Instead,
these scientific ways are tools that help us verify and discover what the
unknown truth is out there to make them known to us.

3. Present your argument for the existence of non-existence of God.

Where reason ends, faith begins.- J. Frank Norris
Growing up in a Catholic environment, I may only have one argument
for Gods existence- life. Truly, in our world today with all the innovations
and advancements, every living being can be broken down to their
simplest composition but it always come to an end that science cannot
explain anymore. Like say, a person is made of organs and different body
parts, organs are then made of cells and the cells contain smaller parts.
Take the ribosome, for example, which is technically the smallest
organelle in a cell. But whats next after that? It cannot be broken down
to something smaller. It cannot be explained to be anything else, aside
from its purpose. When you ask, but where did it come from? No exact
scientific explanation is presented upon you. No human mind can answer,
may be yet, but these things that seem to be dead end of sciences
explanation and the start of attributing these things to a designer- God.
Our own body is a complex structure of intertwined and
interdependent systems. No matter how much we attribute the being of
every organ to science, for everything to work together systematically to

Bonifacio, Ma. Patricia Therese C. (11028408)

12, 2012
Intfilo V24
Quiz 2- Essay

March

function as one is not explained or answerable by science. Indeed, you

might say that evolution brought us here. Natural selection, adaptation,
survival of the fittest and what else. But is it also evolution that said that
we should have two eyes, two eyebrows? Two nostrils? Or 5 fingers per
hand and 5 toes per foot? Or have an appendix, an organ we can actually
live without anyway? Adaptation is the changes in behavior, physiology,
and structure of an organism to become more suited to an environment
meaning we could have more arms to do more or just one big eye to see
since adaptation doesnt speak anything about aesthetics. But we are
proportioned as we are now, what we can say as perfect and suited to
anything we need to do. To come like this, one being with a thinking and
conscious mind is a design of a higher being, God.