Tok - Model

A model is a simplified representation of some aspect of the world. In what ways may models help or hinder the research for knowledge?

A model by definition is “a schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics”(source) that implies that a model is supposed to be a helping hand while searching for knowledge in any subject. Sometimes however models can appear to be quite confusing as they are to general or too far away from real life situations. So how and in what way models can help and hinder the search for knowledge in natural sciences, human sciences and arts I am going to argue in the following essay.

In school we learn all our subjects with the help of models and especially in natural sciences we need them in order to assume what might happen if, say in biology, in a cell there is a lack of oxygen and we know and can explain with a model of a cell and of the respiratory cycle how anaerobic respiration works and what it does and needs. With the help of the model and through logical connecting of facts that the student might already have, he can develop the thought in his or her mind and therefore gain new knowledge about a theoretical process that was proven to take place in the human body. Another model, which however is not as accurate also in Biology is the Sigmoid Population growth curve. It displays the population growth of a species over a period of time that settled in a new place. It is a generalised idea, which does not have to take place but is very likely to and has already been seen in various areas and populations even in human population. With the knowledge of this model people make assumptions about the development of a population which will eventually reach a point at which it cannot grow anymore called the carrying capacity. People made assumptions like that about the earth too and apparently we already went above the actual