This blog feels like a cold empty building right now. Is there anybody out there?

OK - how about this? There is a proposal to change the law concerning voting rights in Hungary. The suggestion is that each mother should get more than one vote - one for herself and another one for each dependent child that she has below the independent voting age. See:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/17/hungary-mothers-get-extra-votes

The justification is that, without such a measure, a significant proportion of the population is disenfranchised - ie has no say in the future direction of government in the country.

As we are starting our formal consideration of ethics today, let's use this example in order to try to develop some arguments about whether this proposal is a good idea or not. What do you think?

Here is an article which I found quite interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/13/mexico-language-ayapaneco-dying-out

Look at the comments under the article for some conflicting opinions about this matter. What do you think?

Dear All,

Now that we have had some experience with preparing and delivering TOK presentations, it is time for us to turn our attention to essay work.

We are going to provide you with a procedure that we recommend for the essay writing process. In the mean time, here are the instructions and titles. Please think about how you could use your experiences with TOK and beyond in order to respond to each of these questions. Don't make a snap judgement about which one you think you would like to answer - in this task, often the snap judgements are the worst judgements.

Instructions
Your theory of knowledge essay for this semester must be written on one of the three titles (questions) provided below. You may choose any title, but are recommended to consult with your teacher. Your essay will be marked for proficiency in the four domains that are described in the assessment criteria published in the Theory of Knowledge guide. Remember to centre your essay on knowledge issues and, where appropriate, refer to other parts of your IB programme and to your experiences as a knower. Always justify your statements and provide relevant examples to illustrate your arguments. Pay attention to the implications of your arguments, and remember to consider what can be said against them. If you use external sources, cite them according to a recognized convention.

Note that statements in quotations in these titles are not necessarily authentic: they present a real point of view but may not have been spoken or written by an actual person. It is appropriate to analyze them but it is unnecessary, even unwise, to spend time on researching a context for them.

Respond to the title exactly as given; do not alter it in any way.

Your essay must be between 1200 and 1600 words in length.

Your essay must be submitted to your class teacher by TUESDAY 3rd MAY 2011.


TITLES

1. "For it is in the long run that, somehow, truth may survive - through the decay of untruth." (John Lukacs) To what extent is this the case in different areas of knowledge and in your own experience?

2. "We are more likely to be mistaken in our generalizations than in our particular observations." Do you agree?

3. “To know is to be able to predict.” How accurate is this claim in different areas of knowledge?

This is from a piece by Nicholas Carr who has written a book called "The Shallows", in which he outlines many effects that he thinks the online environment is causing:

There's a study called "The Laptop and the Lecture" that divided a class into two sets. One-half of the students could use their laptops in a classroom while listening to a lecture. They were free to surf the Web. And the other half had to keep their laptops closed. And then there was a test of comprehension. And the students who used their laptops scored significantly lower on the comprehension test for how well they could remember the content of the lecture. An interesting twist was that students who visited sites relevant to the content of the lecture actually did even worse on the test than students who browsed unrelated sites. It indicates that, even if you think that allowing students to look at other information relevant to what they're being taught might enhance their learning, it actually appears to have the opposite effect.

Source: http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Technology-Making-Your/66128/

Accompanying his book, Carr also wrote an article that has been widely discussed over the last year, called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" - read it here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/

What are your reactions?

Some people say that multiculturalism is a dead idea - they claim that it doesn't work. People with widely differing values, cultures, beliefs getting along together in the same society is not a reasonable expectation.

The roots of each country belong in one particular tradition that shapes its institutions and methods for making things happen effectively. As diversity increases, people experience an ever-widening gulf between the strong loyalty they feel to their own group and weaker ties to the society as a whole, and this leads to fragmentation and conflict.

Better solutions include encouraging people to stay where they "belong", or insisting that people adopt the core traditions of the country concerned whether or not they agree or conflict with their own values and beliefs.

What do you think?

Think about what the black box could represent in each of the areas of knowledge that we have discussed so far. What metaphorical "black boxes" exist in each of them? What approaches are taken by people working in each of these areas of knowledge in order to deal with their "black boxes"? Do any of these approaches correspond in any meaningful way to your approach to the real black box? Are "black boxes" sometimes deliberately created in some disciplines in order to help us in the creation of knowledge?

Here's a teaser:

History is littered with names for different ages - the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, etc.

In the future - maybe 100 years from now - what name will historians give to our age? Why?

What an eventful entry into March, the month of Ghana's independence!!!

So why would a class of 86 (I hope I'm right) people believe that "Ghaddafi" had decided to call on HGIC for a few hours?

What lessons relating to our study of TOK can we learn from the hoax pulled on the entire class and even to some extent the entire school?

Did people give the type of accounts they gave of the event due to their loyalties to certain people, or were certain reactions due to people's reluctance to give up positions they considered dear?

How does being in the know affect a person's reaction to an event?

More importantly, what are the truths that we learn from such a situation? How do such events bring underlying issues which society tries desperately to hide to the fore?

What kind of historian is the most reliable for obtaining knowledge?

As we end our Human sciences lessons in theory of knowledge. The events taking place in North Africa and the Middle East brings up some interesting knowledge issues.

 What role has the use of technology played in the success of these revolts?

 Is there a pattern being played out, as to which countries would experience these revolts?

  Can the Human Sciences come up with a theory which would serve as an indicator for making predictions on future revolts? If yes what would this theory be like? how precise would it be? can it ever move on to become one of the laws in Human Science?

                                                                                                 Michael Djan

Dear All,

Having assimilated assiduously Mr. Ofei's remarks during his assembly presentation last week, we have subscribed collectively with renewed vigour to the idea that modern information and communication technologies provide an important type of educational tool, but not the only one.

Accordingly, we intend that our forthcoming TOK weekend should be governed by the general rule that digital devices are not welcome, so that other avenues for learning and acquiring knowledge are given full advantage on this particular occasion.

What do you think about this idea? What could be gained and lost by such a policy during a TOK weekend?

The Turing Test

“Each year for the past two decades, the artificial-intelligence community has convened for the field’s most anticipated and controversial event—a meeting to confer the Loebner Prize on the winner of a competition called the Turing Test. The test is named for the British mathematician Alan Turing, one of the founders of computer science, who in 1950 attempted to answer one of the field’s earliest questions: can machines think? That is, would it ever be possible to construct a computer so sophisticated that it could actually be said to be thinking, to be intelligent, to have a mind?”
Can a computer know? What does it mean to know?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/03/mind-vs-machine/8386

I think it would be interesting to take a look at the findings of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is a regularly updated study commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The latest complete study of 15-year-old students from OECD member countries shows clearly that students from the People’s Republic of China outperform students from all the other countries in the study (in the fields of language-related skills, mathematics and science), including highly developed countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and so on.

Results are to be found in an executive summary called PISA Report 2009 that you will find at:

K:\Staff_To_Students\IB Subjects\Core\TOK

Please look at page 8.

If you prefer, you can look just at the results page online at:

http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf

Now we are starting to examine the human sciences in our TOK work this week, and the question I would like to pose to you is this: how would you start to investigate the possible causes of the fact that Chinese students outperform students in other countries? I don’t want us to discuss how reliable the PISA results are – that is another, and equally interesting, question – let’s just accept them for now. But the question is WHY? How could you start to find the causes of this phenomenon (Chinese excellence) in a way that would be scientifically acceptable?

You will notice that on the final page of the report, the OECD member countries are listed, and none of them is African – therefore there is no African data included. Are there any implications of this? But answer the first question first…

Here is a new thread from Mr. Kidane:

Thaler’s Question

I am asking you this on behalf of RICHARD H. THALER, Director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago. He requested:

“I am doing research for a new book and would hope to elicit informed responses to the following question:

The flat earth and geocentric world are examples of wrong scientific beliefs that were held for long periods. Can you name your favorite example and for why it was believed to be true?

Please note that I am interested in things we once thought were true and took forever to unlearn. I am looking for wrong scientific beliefs that we've already learned were wrong, rather than those the respondent is predicting will be wrong.
Several responders pointed out that the phrase "scientific belief" in my question was not well defined. Did I mean beliefs held by scientists or beliefs by the lay public about science. The answer is that I am interested in both.”

Let’s help him. I believe we will learn a lot about the nature of science answering this:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler10/thaler10_index.html

Kidane S

Dear Everyone,

In our current exploration of the natural sciences, it is important to get some experience of the development of science and how this happens. Although you certainly should draw on your personal exposure to science from your science courses and lessons, in some ways this will not be enough to gain a full understanding of what we want to talk about in TOK with regard to science. This is because much of what you learn in science classes is about how science is understood NOW rather than how that understanding developed in the past. We need both.

You will find a fascinating documentary on the development of physics in the 20th century at:

K:\Staff_To_Students\IB Subjects\Core\TOK

There is a worksheet at the same location with the same name - use it to guide your viewing and to focus on the key points that are made. We expect you to make the time to watch this video between now and next Monday as we will ask you for your reactions next week in class.

Dear IB1 TOKers,

I am excited by the development of this new blog and grateful to those who have spent their time setting it up. A round of applause for you! This blog provides a vital channel for TOK discussion beyond the classroom, and we intend to use it to the limit of its potential. We expect everyone to contribute, not least because these contributions will be considered when we come to decide on semester grades from now on. So get involved!

Here is my first contribution.

Some of us have been thinking about whether science is better described as a body of knowledge or as a way of thinking. Please give this some thought, and then go to the following college network location and read the short article from the New York Times that I have entitled "Anthropology as Science":

K:\Staff_To_Students\IB Subjects\Core\TOK

If we consider the body of knowledge in anthropology to be about human culture(s), would that subject matter allow anthropologists legitimately to call their subject a science?

If science is better thought of as a way of thinking, then what should anthropologists be doing or be able to do in order for them legitimately to call themselves scientists?

The article suggests that there are those in the anthropological community who "see themselves as advocates for native peoples or human rights" - do you think that the anthropologists who see themselves in this way can legitimately call themselves scientists? Why or why not?

Lastly, why should people get so serious and heated about whether the word "science" is or isn't included in a mission statement? It's just a word, isn't it?

Looking forward to some interesting dialogue on this...

Seeing as we closed the chapter on Semester I studying EMOTION, it would be nice to refresh our mind on this topic. Accordingly, this excerpt on Pascal Bruckner’s book, The Tyranny of Guilt, suggests that the Western world’s expression of guilt in certain instances allow us to infer certain truths about them. However whether this proposition about emotion ultimately revealing inherent truths about people or societies is true or not is up for discussion:

With slavery, the Holocaust, and colonialism behind us, we in the west like to lay claim to all that is corrupt and evil in humanity. "The Euro-American is simultaneously cursed and indispensable," writes Bruckner. "Thanks to him, everything becomes clear, evil acquires a face, the dirty rat is universally designated. Biological, political, metaphysical guilt."
Thus it was that so many fine minds could greet the incineration of 3,000 people live on television in 2001 with cries of: "We had it coming"; "What did we expect?"; or, in Baudrillard's case, something close to jubilation.
But, Bruckner argues, this self-recrimination amounts to little more than delusional narcissism, a means of sustaining a sense of our own importance not through the exercise of power but through the expression of remorse. As European influence contracts, so do our claims on responsibility expand. "Our superiority complex has taken refuge in the perpetual avowal of our sins," writes Bruckner, "a strange way of inflating our puny selves to global dimensions."