In general, seeing is believing. You can’t believe something just by hearing. You have to “see” what really happens, so you believe it.
In the play, Much Ado about Nothing, Claudio and Hero were lovers. Don John and Don Pedro were evil half brothers and wanted to cause some troubles to Claudio. Don John told Claudio that Hero had been unfaithful to him. When hearing about this, Claudio believed this was true, but Hero didn’t betray him at all. Claudio found out at the end that Hero was faithful to him. He felt sorry and regretted believing Don John. At the end, the two lovers married each other. In this short scene, this teaches readers a lesson that you shouldn’t believe what others tell you and instead go to find out the objective truth on your own.
In our daily life, there are a lot of cases where hearing is not believing. For instance, when you want to be on the tennis team, you have to show your skills to the coaches to see if you are qualified to be in the team. Your old tennis coach told your new tennis coach how well you play in tennis and don’t need to go to tryouts. In this case, the new coach could refer to the old coach but can't totally believe what that coach told him. The new coach should still see on his/her own and decide whether you meet all the requirements for the team.
In the law enforcement system, “seeing is believing” is a fundamental rule that police officers and detectives should stick to. During investigation, police officers would touch base with suspects, witnesses, and the feedback from the technical department. All these are hearing information, and how to appropriately piece together all the information and find out the real criminals requires massive and tedious analysis and time consuming evidence search in a crime scene. On the contrary, “Hearing is believing” could mislead the whole investigation and cause intolerable serious injustice. In 2001, there was a series of kidnapping crimes that happened in South Carolina. In order to solve this serious case as soon as possible to give the public an answer, the local police department arrested an innocent person just based on a non proved evidence from the technical department. The worst thing was the real criminal escaped and the crimes continued and more victims were found! Even though the evil criminal was arrested in the end, tragedies already happened. If the staff in the technical department were more responsible for their job, and police officers would not completely believe what they heard from the technical department, the criminal would be found much earlier and all the following tragedies could be avoided. The police must find out the truth on their own and prove to see whether that information is correct or not. This case proves hearing not believing but seeing is believing.
In scientific research, “Seeing is believing” is the first principle all scientists and researchers should have in their mindsets. There once was a German physicist who claimed his series of incredible findings in the semiconductor field, and published many papers in the most famous scientific journals such as “Nature” and “Science”. He had been widely regarded as the young Physics star and the next Nobel prize winner. He had accepted many interviews from the media, and told the reporters about his magnificent discoveries. Many other scientists heard about his research and started trying to reproduce his experiments because they were excited to see what really would happen in labs. However, none of them could repeat what this young genius had claimed. From then on, more and more people became skeptical about the authenticity of his research before he was completely exposed. In the end his Ph.D degree was revoked and prizes awarded to him were rescinded as the result of “dishonourable conduct”. This case is the most serious research scandal in physics history. His co-authors and article reviewers made a huge mistake in that they fully believed what this young physicist said about his research without any investigation until it turned out to be false scientific findings. What a big lesson we need to learn from this scandal! That is why you shouldn’t easily believe what anyone tells you.
“Seeing is believing” is not always true. However, in some cases, seeing is not believing. In the play Midsummer Night’s Dream, Robin put the magic flower juice into Lysander and Demetrius' eyes. When they both woke up from their sleep, they both were in love with Helena, Hermia’s friend. Nobody loved Hermia, which made her very angry. Based off of this short messed-up scene, people would know that not everything they see is true and must believe. You can’t always believe what you see. You have to think, then do some research and practice to prove what you see is worth believing. You need to make your own judgment independently.
In a magic show, “Seeing is not believing” because magic isn’t real and the majority of the people have no clue on how magic works. Magicians create magic for the audience to attract them, but actually they are fake. The purpose of magic is just wanting to grab the audience's attention. There is no such thing as magic. What you see is not what really happens!
In the nature we are living in, there are some phenomena showing “Seeing is not believing”. Mirage is one of these miracle things. When you were traveling in a desert, or driving on a highway in hot weather, you would see a mirage. In the desert, it looks like there is a huge lake very far away in front of you. However when you go there, the “lake” does not exist at all. Actually it is due to light ray refraction in hot air. Your eyes are fooled by this interesting optical phenomena.
In conclusion, hearing is not believing and seeing can be believing only if we do our own objective analysis and prove it worth believing.
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