TOK Topics

One of the powers of Western science that has brought us so much understanding and benefit is this separation of the observer and the observed; to say that we could be rational and objective and empirically know the truth of the world. Absolutely, but there are lots of truths. I like to say that there are multiple ways of knowing, and we could benefit by engaging more of them. I do recognize the slippery-slope argument, because people have said to me, Does that mean that you think that creation science is valid science? No, I don’t, because it is not empirically validatable. But sometimes what we call conventional Western science is in fact scientism. Scientism being this notion that Western science is the only way to truth. It’s a powerful way to truth, but there are other ways, too. Traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous science, is a more holistic way of knowing. In Western science, for often very good reasons, we separate our values and our knowledge. In Indigenous science, knowledge and values are always coupled. It’s an ethically driven science.