Category Archives: Knowledge Issues

Pseudoscience or Science?

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What is pseudoscience?

And how can you distinguish it from real science?

Click on the above links to begin your research.

One way to detect pseudoscience is to be observant of claims that are made, yet not tested under scientific conditions. Remember that scientific claims should be reproducible, predictable, and testable.  Isn’t it just easier to imagine that these actions have been taken rather than investigate it all for ourselves? Not only are we lazy, but apparently we are biologically hardwired to see patterns which seem to confirm our bias. To learn more about this idea, see this Ted.com presentation by Michael Shermer

Please reply to this post by explaining pseudoscience and by providing at least one example that you encounter in your everyday experiences and observations.  What makes your example pseudoscience? What scientific thinking could be applied to test the claims that are made? How can you defend yourself against such claims?

Metaphors We Live By

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Greetings children,

I hope you are up for thinking about the power of metaphorical language, which we know is ubiquitous. For Lakoff and Johnson’s original article, “Language, Thought, and Culture,” you can find the link on this web page under the “Language Links” to the right.

Where else do we see examples of metaphorical language in our studies of science, math, history, art, social sciences, and literature? How do we create our reality with these expressions?

Kind Regards,

Papa Coey

Understanding Knowledge Issues

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Knowledge issues are:

• open-ended questions that admit more than one possible answer

• explicitly about knowledge in itself and not subject-specific claims

• couched in terms of TOK vocabulary and concepts: the areas of knowledge, the ways of knowing and the concepts in the linking questions—belief, certainty, culture, evidence, experience, explanation, interpretation, intuition, justification, truth, values

• precise in terms of the relationships between these concepts

Assignent 1: Review the above information, and in your own words explain the concept of “knowledge issue.” It’s tough, but embrace this challenge! (Due today!)

Knowledge issue examples:

  1. How can our sense perception be relied upon to justify our reasons?
  2. Does our language and emotion determine what we believe and know?
  3. How do metaphors affect what we believe in science and in history?
  4. To what extent is certainty possible in the arts and ethics?
  5. How is inductive reasoning a strength and weakness when reasoning?
  6. What source of knowledge has not been touched by human thought or language? How do we establish objectivity?
  7. How does deductive logic allow for certainty in math and history?

Assignment 2: Visit one of the “reliable” sources of knowledge you or your classmates identified, and look for a real-life situation containing a “knowledge issue.”  What is the real situation? And, most importantly, what open-ended question needs to be asked? (Due Tuesday at 11:59pm)

Assignment 3: Reply to two classmates posts by asking additional questions, using the language of ToK and “knowledge issues.” (Due Thursday evening for our Friday review)

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Gracias!

Coey