swine flu

Hi everyone,

You have no doubt been following the news about the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and beyond. Click on the title above to connect to an interesting piece written about the limits of our knowledge of what is going to happen.

Those of you who have been thinking about knowledge as justified true belief should try to make the connection here. If Simon Jenkins (see article for details) claims that nothing serious is going to happen and that the disease will die out and disappear, and then indeed nothing serious happens and it does die out and disappear, does this mean that Simon Jenkins knew this was going to happen? It would then seem, with hindsight, that he had a true belief, but can we say that he was justified in making the claim at the time that he made it? What would count as an acceptable justification for such a belief NOW (not after what happens happens!)? Would it make sense to say that he was "right"? The author of this piece is saying that, as things stand, there can be no acceptable justification for this claim, and that we cannot be "right" about it. This seems to suggest that being right about something entails having good grounds for claiming it in the first place.

This matters because we are presently bombarded with claims in the media and from other people about this issue, and we need to be able to evaluate what they are saying. What do you think about all of this?

This is a second really good current example of the problems of knowing the future - the other one that comes immediately to mind is the economic recession. These sorts of examples illustrate what we sometimes call "knowledge at work in the world", and I hope that they show how TOK is really important to real-life situations.

Can pornography be considered art?

This arose in our most recent TOK lesson. What do you think?

Barack Obama's presidential plane causes panic in New York

I thought this was funny. Perhaps I have a very sick sense of humour.

In terms of TOK and ways of knowing, did people's emotion override their reasoning in assessing what was happening? Was their reaction 'reasonable'?

An Art Show Review by Germaine Greer

What do critics have to add to our understanding of art? Should they be critical or constructive?

The Week in Art

An interesting assortment of imagery.

Turner Prize Shortlist

How do art awards and shortlists inform our attitudes towards art? Do they confirm or challenge the cultural orthodoxy? Does such a thing exist?

Islam Stripped Bare: Middle Eastern Art

Some interesting imagery (?) How does culture manifest itself in art? Is it a circular process?

Brigitte Lancombe Photos

What makes a good photographic portrait?

Antinous by Paul Delvaux

An interesting forum for discussion about Modern Art.

Still can't reference?

Less than a week to go till submission and you still don't know how to reference??? How?!?!? In an earlier post, I mentioned being able to use Word '07 to help with your referencing (well more like it doe it all for you), but you still have to be able to enter the right information into the right fields to make sure you're good.

If you prefer the more manual approach, here's a link which gives info about referencing in MLA format you should take a look at, http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/mla.html. There's a lot if information on the site about referencing different types of material and it should be a lot of help. Have fun!!

Oh yeah and please share any other resources you have on referencing, the way I see it, if even one of us has a problem with referencing, it diminishes the credibility of the work of the entire class.

on the right, on the right!!!

4 days to go - 20 votes cast; 70 votes missing. How has the course met the aims?

METHOD:

Read aims, engage memory, reflect a little, click boxes - you CAN do it!

school's in session: welcome back!

Welcome back (physically) everyone!

Tomorrow we will be looking at another exemplar essay in class, so that you can get a few more dos and don'ts for your own essay due next week. So please make sure to bring your copy of the assessment criteria to your lesson.

Secondly, despite the reminders, our poll on the aims of the course has received replies from only 16 of you. What about the other 74? Don't you have any opinion about the course? One of the goals (if not a specific aim) of what we are doing is to try to develop informed and supportable opinions. So please take a few minutes to reflect on your experiences to date and add your view.

Next week, we will start a section of the course on the Arts. I don't know anyone who has no views on the Arts - you all study literature, I have evidence that suggests that many of you like certain kinds of music, then we have the visual arts, and performing arts... So get those ideas and examples ready...

the spaghetti crop

Hi Everyone,

Remember my post on 1st April (HEY, LISTEN: 1ST APRIL!!!) that invited you to view a video at:

K:\Staff_To_Students\IB Subjects\Core\TOK

Well, there are two possibilities:

(a) you went and looked and it was so boring that you decided not to comment, or
(b) you didn't go there

On the expectation that at least some of you didn't go there (it's still there, so you can still bother!), this was a famous April Fools' joke from 1957 on the BBC in the UK. Is the April Fools' idea culturally specific? I can imagine there might be problems with the Ethiopian calendar, for example - please put me right, guys (or Ribika). From what I can gather, the origin of this practice might have something to do with the changeover in much of Europe from the Julian calendar (not my responsibility - no jokes about IB deadlines please!) to the Gregorian calendar in 1582 (Christian Era), but I haven't got a firm grasp of the reasons. Can anyone help?

Anyway, in 1957 this was a very convincing "phoney" news story (of course in 2009 it might not work so well, or...? - if not, why not?). Try the following for more information:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

What I wanted us to discuss was the ways in which our Ways of Knowing, as characterized in the TOK course, function (independently and in concert) in order to help or hinder us in recognizing the truth. This would simply be a trigger for a wider discussion on the connections between Ways of Knowing - think about sense perception and reason in particular, but not exclusively...

No referencing = -2!!!

Hi guys,

So I'm working on my essay and I'm using MS Word '07, trying to find the word count (when it's displayed at the bottom) and I stumbled on a tab that says "References". You can switch the referencing type to MLA and then it allows you to enter in the information of the book, web page, etc. I haven't fully explored it, but from what I have tried it seems pretty useful.

Sorry if you don't have MS Word '07, but for those of you who do, happy referencing!! (but erm I am not to be held liable for any errors in your references...this is just a tip to help you out....)

Our Poll on TOK Aims

Here is a funny thing. The number of votes in the poll on the right is GOING DOWN! The other day there were 11 votes; yesterday it was 10, now it is 9. What's going on? Are people "unvoting"?

In any case, 9 out of 90 is not great. Precisely 90% not great. Please think carefully and add your views - your contribution would be much valued. Thanks.

The Pool of Issues

Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"Important truths begin as outrageous, or at least uncomfortable, attacks upon the accepted wisdom of the time."
———————————————
"Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means putting old ideas together in new ways."
———————————————
"Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places."
———————————————
"It is always an individual who is the impetus for innovation; the details may be worked out by a team, but true innovation results from the enterprise and unique perception of an individual."
———————————————
"The function of science is to reassure; the purpose of art is to upset. Therein lies the value of each."
———————————————
"The study of an academic discipline alters the way we perceive the world. After studying the discipline, we see the same world as before, but with different eyes."

TOK marking criteria??

what exactly is knower's perspective?? I feel I don't fully understand what it is because with the sample essay we got in class the essay got a 9 for this criterion but I didn't see why

Full-Length Essay Assignment

Instructions and Advice

Your next theory of knowledge essay must be submitted to your teacher. It must be written on one of the three titles (questions) provided below. Your essay will be marked according to the full essay assessment criteria. 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. External sources must be cited according to MLA 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 analyse them but it is unnecessary, even unwise, to spend time on researching a context for them.

Teachers will mark essays against the title as set. 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, and is to be submitted during the TOK lessons on Tuesday 28th April. Previous instructions concerning line-spacing, word-count, exact copying of title, etc. apply.

Prescribed Titles

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

2) In areas of knowledge such as the arts and the sciences, do we learn more from work that follows or that breaks with accepted conventions?

3) Consider the meaning of justification in different areas of knowledge. Is any one kind of justification more compelling than any other?

TOK aims

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please take a few minutes to vote in our new poll on the blog. It's important that you think carefully before you respond because accurate feedback is valuable to us and will help us to adjust anything that needs it.

Don't be influenced by how others have voted (there's a good human sciences knowledge issue here!). And you can vote for as few or as many of the aims as you like.

Thanks in advance.

ROAD MAP

Hi everyone,

I think it might be useful at this point if I gave you a "map" of where we are and where we intend to go.

We have looked at four Areas of Knowledge (the Natural Sciences, the Human Sciences, History and Mathematics) and tried to make some comparisons and points of contact between them. We have also, I hope, been thinking about how we employ the various Ways of Knowing in these disciplines. All the time, we are identifying knowledge issues and trying to respond to them.

Next week, you will be getting your 800-word assignment back with comments. We will give you an opportunity to judge what you think your work is worth, and then we will tell you what we think. We will also look at a couple of essays written by students elsewhere and have a go at marking them - I think this will be a very useful exercise for you in coming to understand what a good essay might look like. You will also get some titles to choose from for your next assignment, which will be a full-length essay of 1,600 words - we will give you the Easter vacation and the time immediately afterwards to write this and the deadline will be 28th April.

In the remaining time before the semester examinations, we will be using our lessons to take a close look at the Arts as an Area of Knowledge. We will still need to look at Ethics, but that will probably be postponed until the very beginning of IB2. However, that does not stop you from finding out a bit about this very important area in advance.

We hope very much that this blog will help you in every aspect of your work in this course and beyond, and that includes essay writing. While the blog is probably not a good source for taking material verbatim (why not?), we hope it raises awareness of issues and examples that you might develop.

As we are concentrating hard on essay writing at the moment, there will be no new question of the week today. Instead, we should be focussing on extending the conversation on last week's question because it is designed to help you directly with the essay writing task. So keep the comments and contributions coming on that thread.

I hope this helps us to orient ourselves with respect to the journey. Have a restful but thoughtful weekend.

Does discovery leads to invention or it is invention that leads to discovery?

Is Logic based on Belief ?

I was thinking yesterday after TOK class about the way we reason and what we call logic. In my opinion i think we practice binary logic. To illustrate this lets take for example i say if something is "non-existent" then it is not "existent" (It is either this or that). This is used in indirect proof (reductio ad absurdum). But i was thinking, what if there were other possibilities like say it was both or neither (I think in Artificial Intelligence this is called fuzzy logic). All these questions were aroused by our talk on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in class. Godel has made us classify some statements as neither true nor false(they are referred to as Undecidable). All along (until Kurt Godel came along), we thought statements were either true or false; That something could only be one of two opposites. I think this is particularly interesting in Quantum Electro Dynamics (QED) where we have a host of counterintuitive results. For example, in Young's double slit experiment, the question as to which slit the photon passed through is still unresolved because it appears to have entered neither, both and yet still only one. What a conundrum !!! But to propose fuzzy logic in my opinion has far reaching consequences for indirect proof which relies on something either being true or false. So, is logic dependent on belief ????

mathematics

Does this saying work or apply in mathematics.
Necessity is the mother of invention?

NOTE: I have corrected all the spelling mistakes here - please take some care with your posts (JHK)

Are Mathematics and Ethics Related???

I can't help but wonder if mathematics and ethics are interrelated. For example when leaders have to make decisions about certain life or death situations, if the death toll is about three people, it is "more moral" than say, a death toll of 1000 people. To me this is trying to quantify morality. So does ethics depend on mathematics? I personally don't have a stance on this issue but it just popped into my head and I wanted to get other opinions.

Invented or discovered?

Shall we start the famous 'is mathematics discovered or invented' debate anew? I remember hMensa posed it earlier. The question is, does nature display some kind of mathematical properties or is mathematics a product of our imagination (or ingenuity) that happen to describe nature? In class many of my students were not impressed when I tried to explain that there is good justification to say that mathematics is a discovery like the sciences. Does nature speak the language of mathematics or it is just us?

food production

Hi Everyone,

Please go to the following network location for an interesting vintage news story on food production.

K:\Staff_To_Students\IB Subjects\Core\TOK

HEY - DID ANYONE GO AND LOOK? NO FEEDBACK? NO TOK INSIGHTS? I'M STILL HOPING (SIGH). MAKE MY DAY...