TITLE #2: “The production of knowledge is always a collaborative task and never solely a

product of the individual.” Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.”

To understand the need to collaborate firstly understanding what knowledge is and how it is

produced is important. One might say knowledge is collecting information from all aspects of

the world through experience, by reading a book, talking to different people and then being

able to apply the gathered information in our daily life. We very often confuse knowledge

with information, knowledge is infact the ability to apply the acquired information in the

correct way in our lives. While acquiring knowledge we must understand that production of

knowledge is a time consuming and intricate process, as for someone to produce knowledge

someone must ponder about an idea and must pursue it further. Once the ideas develop it

required time to be researched and developed, and this process often required support from

people with similar views. The concept of collaboration universal and means the sharing of

ideas that inspires people, this is done by research in a library or retesting a scientific claim.

Most of the knowledge acquired by us is often a result of ideas existing in our memory, that

have been dormant for a long time, what we heard, read, or saw. Its sometimes based on these

subconscious ideas that we create new ideas. Thus, this idea brings me to develop an

understanding that construction of knowledge is influenced by both personal and

collaborative effort. Collaborative and individual effort during knowledge production

transform and shape the individual’s views and imagination, making it easier for perspectives

to develop and for a paradigm shift to take place. It is often the position of the shared

knowledge based on its expert opinion aids the evolution of personal knowledge through a

logical process depending on the faith of the individual but while personal is transformed into

shared knowledge it must be accepted by the community and must pass the required

evaluation and validation of the larger community. Therefore, it lies more on the authority
under whom the knowledge transforms. But collaboration can take place through the sharing

of personal experiences too.

I would like to discuss this framework of knowledge production with the help of religious

knowledge systems, where shared knowledge conditions and influences personal knowledge

through experience. While in natural sciences, knowledge is produced through the process of

falsification, testing and final approved by peer review. The two areas have different ways in

the production of knowledge, with varied degrees of collaboration between shared and

personal knowledge.

In areas such as Natural Sciences where everything is based on empirical evidence like facts,

figures, statistics and images. This is based on scientific method, which involves the

formation and testing of hypothesis. This method helps in providing a systematic, logical way

to answer doubts and eradicates subjectivity needed to validate evidence to replicate the

results (Rouse 2017). For instance, while conducting my physics Internal Assessment, the

main aim of the experiment which was to see the effect of the temperature of water on the

rise of height of the water in a capillary tube, was inspired by the previous works of other

students and by my own intellectual curiosity while learning about it in my 10th Grade class.

I based my research on the bases of past records and asked my seniors for feedback but the

result on which my new experimental setup was based was my personal understanding of the

research, so my IA is the work of both shared and personal experiences. My teacher’s

feedback on my lab report and her inputs to improve my internal assessment lab report,

generates knowledge to improve the mistakes in the IA. Those inputs were mainly based on

what I had written in my lab report which was the evidence I obtained by performing the

experiment via sense perception and could deduce a definite conclusion. Therefore, my

physics teacher’s feedback shows that the production of knowledge is a collaborative task but
the creation of a new setup for my experiment which is the final product of the experimental

procedure is the production of knowledge is based upon an individual's idea. In Natural

science during the collaborative effort shared super cedes the personal efforts and aids

progress. This brings me to question ‘to what extent is the collaborative mission of

producing knowledge based on shared knowledge’. When you aim to create something

amazing, it requires the support, imagination and logic of a lot of people, this working

together to make new discovery possible. When the scientist at CERN were focused at

mapping the secrets of the universe, they aided at developing ATLAS, a physics particle

experiment, the Large Hadron Collider. With over 3000 scientists, engineers and technicians

from with 182 institutions in 38 countries, worked on designing the ATLAS, which will help

new detections on head-on collisions of protons of unusually high energy. The ATLAS will

help in learning about how the basic forces of nature have shaped our universe from the very

beginning of time and will explain climatic change and determine the fate of our universe

thus collaborated to solve problems that will help a better future.

The idea of scientific collaboration is to develop a better future, when scientist collaborate,

intuitive minds and their imaginations come together, they can see a 360-degree view of the

issue and plan a more logical response to issues at hand. Thus, the production of knowledge

during a collaborative mission is based on the understanding of shared effort.

However, while today collaboration is the world’s favourite buzzword, sometimes it becomes

an epic failure, making it collaboration overload. Not all collaboration and united research

necessarily work. For example, in 1981, Dr. Brian McMohan led a group of 5 scientist and

researchers, to start a Harvard study to show the link between drinking coffee and pancreatic

cancer. They claimed to be studying the connection between alcohol, tobacco and cancer,
with a sudden unaccepted result of a related survey showed that coffee did increase the

chances of cancer. But in the period of twenty years the scientific world had no replicable

signs of a connection between coffee and cancer. Thus, the research did not produce a

dramatic outcome and the facts are worse, the results were exact opposite of what the

researchers had planned for. This failure of collaborative research in the scientific world is

called ‘dark data’ (Goezt 2015).

The concept of collaboration has vast implications on the scientific world. The aim of

scientist working together is to aid development, but the views, ideas and goals of all the

researcher in play must match. Also, then the result and the validity of that results is also an

important fact, Finally, collaboration must bring about a feeling of solidarity amongst

scientist and thus respect the focused development.

Like in sciences, religion has essential set of beliefs and observation that are often agreed

upon by a group of people. These beliefs are focused on the cause, nature and existence of the

universe and hold a moral code that controls the behaviour of human beings. In our family

there is a tradition of touching the elder’s feet during religious functions, this is accepted

widely amongst Hindus. I at times do not understand the tradition and questioned the

existence. Only to be explained that it is an age-old tradition set to place the elders in a

position of respect and allow them to pass on their wisdom to us. This has been accepted by

all the Hindus as it is simple and explains the process of knowledge exchange. As science

evolves when shared so has religious knowledge evolved through sharing their views and

ideas. Let’s take within religion the idea of afterlife and the concept of enlightenment and

Nirvana. Though these concepts are created through personal experience of individuals like

Buddha, Muhammad, Mahavir and Jesus, who then shared their experience and developed a
shared understanding to allow for the collaboration of their faith and belief, thus making that

a common faith. Religion and the collaboration of cultures and rituals is at the end of the day

an important fabric of a majority of civilizations. However religious collaboration and

understanding of faith is not possible as there is difference in ideologies, for example though

Christianity and Islam stem from the same roots, there are ideological difference and

differences in faith. Example the support of the Christian support to Israel and making

Jerusalem a no man’s land. Thus, when there is political interference in religion the aim of

understanding the basis of what the faith compromises becomes difficult. Thus, although faith

and belief are the very cradle of religion compromise is not always possible.

So why the debate between how knowledge is produced is very important and the role played

by shared collaborative effort is placed very high, the question remains what influence does

the experience of an individual play in this production of knowledge. According to me the

role of both a shared community as well as an individual not only aid in the production of

knowledge but in its application and development too. Knowledge shapes and changes and

individuals life who further influences the world around him.

https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/scientific-method: Margaret Rouse

https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/mega-collaborations-for-scientific-discovery:
0 8 / 2 4 / 1 7 By Leah Poffenberger
https://www.wired.com/2007/09/st-essay-3/