GRE: Knowledge and Rejection of Authority

Question:

"Great advances in knowledge always require rejection of authority."

Answer:

The statement asserts that advancement of knowledge always requires a rejection of authority. I agree with the statement for most part of it. However, one should also sense disquiet with the word "always". The statement seem to suggest that every single "great advances", without exclusion, will "always involve" a rejection of authority. This is unrealistic and inaccurate.

In most great advancements of knowledge, often the individuals involved first began by questioning old doctrines. Galileo questioned the Roman Catholic's dogmatic view of a flat Earth, consequently, leading to the discovery that the Earth is round. Copernicus rejected the Roman Catholic's Geocentric model leading to the discovery of Heliocentricism. Former bodies of knowledge, often authoritatively held, have tendancies of being impedances to advancements. It would thus, in many cases, be useful to first reject these authorities to free up one's mind for new possibilities.

However, many great advancements were made without even a single existing authority to be questioned. Adventitious discoveries are good examples. Also, consider archeological expeditions where new fossils are being discovered and great knowledge being advanced. Clearly, none of these would have involved having to reject any authorities. They were simply, new additions to our understanding.

In conclusion, although many new advances to our knowledge were made after rejection of authorities, there exist a considerable number of advancements that certainly did not involve any such rejections. A more accurate statement would therefore be to say that most great advances of knowledge require rejection of authority.

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Hi guys, this is my first ever attempt at a GRE essay question. I don't know what is really expected and would appreciate any comments. Thanks a lot guys.

You organization and arguments are strong. I have never written a GRE essay so I don't really know what they are looking for. Here are a few other comments though:

Watch your subject/verb agreement. There are a couple places in the essay where the noun doesn't match the verb tense.


Statement is singular and seem is plural. every single is singular and "great advances" is plural. The statement seems to suggest that every single "great advancement," ...


Impediments would be a better word here and I believe it is the word you were looking for. While impedances is technically correct, it is more of a physics term while impediments is commonly used to mean obstruction. My Word program highlights impedances as not being a word.

You use a lot of passive verbs. The entire essay would benefit if you were to change some of those verb constructions to the active voice.

This is patently false. That the world was spheroid was known for centuries before Galileo, and in fact the belief predates the Catholic Church, which never subscribed to the theory of a flat Earth. Galileo subscribed to Copernicus's heliocentric theory at a time when most people still held to the geocentric one, however. Galileo believed he could prove heliocentrism through the study of the Earth's tides. The Pope at the time would have let him get away with it, too, as long as he had included a caveat that it was only a theory, which, at the time, would have been a perfectly accurate statement. In fact, the only real reason to prefer the heliocentric view at that time was that the maths needed to describe the model were somewhat simpler than the ones required for the geocentric one, whereas anyone looking at the sky would have sworn that the geocentric view of the Earth was true based on direct observation (the relativistic effects of motion were not so well known back then). However, in his defense of the theory, which took the form of a dialogue, Galileo portrayed the person who defended the Pope's personal views as a bumbling fool. The Pope was not amused, and ordered Galileo dragged before the Inquisition.

Beyond that, you might want to reference more specific examples in your second body paragraph. Also, overall, you need to include a more in-depth exploration of what exactly the relationship is between technological advancement and authority. The development of the atomic bomb, for instance, was funded by various governments, as was the development of most early spaceflight technology.

This essay is awfully slight for a GRE essay. You make one point ("not always"), support it with a couple of examples (one of them inaccurate), and that's it. Remember that the GRE essay is not only a writing test but also a thinking test. Demonstrate your ability to think complexly and critically.

Thanks Notoman for aiding me with my English.

Thanks Sean for correcting my inaccuracies and also giving me added suggestions.

Thanks Simone for those pointers on GRE.

Thank you guys.