Knowledge is true opinion.” This statement from Plato really struck a chord with me, as I had always received knowledge from a higher authority, from school teachers to the elderly in my religious society. However, through collective opinion, we get a varied response from many people, eventually gaining validity in our knowledge. This could be done through agreements between many members of a field, thereby reaching consensus. The consensus theory of truth states that something is true if a large number of people agree that it is true. On the other hand, conflicting opinions and disagreements could also be a form of knowledge acquisition. Next, I asked myself what is the role of outside opinion in influencing our perception of knowledge? Is it better to gain knowledge from opinions than what I am currently learning? Knowledge can be said to be robust when it is supported or validated by reliable sources, or according to Karl Popper when knowledge can be falsified. The more a theory has been challenged and debated and has withstood these disagreements, the more robust it is. So this brings me to discuss the claim that “robust knowledge requires both consensus and disagreement.” I will discuss this statement through the natural sciences, since consensus and disagreement are frequently used, and through indigenous knowledge systems, to assess how my current way of acquiring knowledge compares to what we discuss in the natural sciences. Say no. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Scientific consensus can be defined as the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. To judge a scientific theory, a consensus allows it to be validated. Plato's definition of knowledge as "justified true belief of knowledge" states that if a proposition is true, the subject believes the proposition and is justified in his beliefs. However, Karl Popper opposed this system by asserting that for a scientific theory to be truly scientific, it must be capable of being falsified. If this is not possible, then the theory may well reside in the realm of the supernatural, superstition or faith, hence it is called falsification theory. He explains this theory by stating that to create knowledge, claims must be criticized rather than justified. Indeed, justifications will eventually turn into circular arguments, where there will be infinite justifications for a statement. Instead, by falsifying and critiquing existing knowledge, we are able to strengthen the theory. Through this we arrive at the question “To what extent does the falsifiability of knowledge affect its robustness?” The consensus lies in the climate field and in the overall judgment of scientists on the extent of global warming, its probable causes and its possible consequences. The scientific consensus among scientists is that it is extremely likely that global warming is caused by humans, due to the increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases due to the burning of fossil fuels. Associations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the United States National Academy of Sciences, to name a few, have explicitly.