Read the article on the ToK assignments page and post a reflection.
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Read the article in the ToK Assignments page and post a reflection. This
Go to the ToK assignments page and read the article about the future of human evolution. Create your own unique possible future for humanity and post it here.
• What kinds of explanations do human sciences offer, and how do these explanations compare with
those in other areas of knowledge? To what extent do the human sciences offer any of the following: scientific laws, recognition of general patterns and tendencies, prediction of the future? To what extent do they offer insight or understanding? • Can human behaviour be usefully classified and categorized? Can it be classified within a culture? Across cultures? Can patterns of behaviour be identified as human behaviour? • In what ways might the beliefs and interests of human scientists influence their conclusions? Do the same considerations apply in other areas of knowledge such as the natural sciences or mathematics? • In what ways might social, political, cultural and religious factors affect the types of human science research that are financed and undertaken, or rejected? • In what ways might the beliefs and interests of human scientists influence their conclusions? Do the same considerations apply in other areas of knowledge such as the natural sciences or mathematics? • In what ways might social, political, cultural and religious factors affect the types of human science research that are financed and undertaken, or rejected? • What kinds of knowledge are usually included in the category of human science? How do we decide
whether a particular area of study is a human science? What are the similarities and differences between the subject matter and methodologies of the various human sciences? • To what extent does the human subject matter of this area of knowledge affect a scientific approach? Is it reasonable to think that human behaviour can be studied scientifically? • Are the human sciences, as a whole, fundamentally different from the natural sciences? Or are there sometimes surprising similarities between the two areas in, for example, the ways they use models and theories, their methods for collecting data, the nature of facts, the role of observation and experimentation, the impact of the observer on the observed phenomena, quantification, falsifiability, precise prediction, identification of constants, and the degree of complexity of the phenomena studied? • How might the language used in polls, questionnaires and other information-gathering devices of this sort influence the conclusions reached? If there is an influence, does it, or a similar one, occur in natural science research? Does the extent of the influence relate to the degree of certainty attributed to the natural sciences and the human sciences respectively, or to the social status or value associated with each? • How does the use of numbers, statistics, graphs and other quantitative instruments affect the way knowledge claims in the human sciences are valued? • Is it reasonable to attempt to explain human behaviour independently of what people claim are their intentions? Are there insights into behaviour that can only be afforded by finding these out? • What is the role of imagination and creativity in the sciences? To what extent might the formulation
of a hypothesis or the invention of a research method be comparable to imagining and creating a work of art? • What knowledge, if any, will always remain beyond the capabilities of science to investigate or verify? If there is, or can be, such knowledge, why will it always elude effective scientific treatment? • What kinds of explanations do scientists offer, and how do these explanations compare with those offered in other areas of knowledge? What are the differences between theories and myths as forms of explanation? • To what extent can all the natural sciences be understood through the study of just one science, for example, physics? If biology relies on chemistry, and chemistry relies on physics, can it be said that all natural sciences are reducible to physics? If so, what would be the implications of this position? • Is scientific knowledge progressive? Has scientific knowledge always grown? In this respect, how do the natural sciences compare with other areas of knowledge, for example, history, the human sciences, ethics and the arts? Could there ever be an “end” to science? In other words, could we reach a point where everything important in a scientific sense is known? If so, what might be the consequences of this? • Is it accurate to say that much of science investigates entities and concepts beyond everyday experience of the world, such as the nature and behaviour of electromagnetic fields, subatomic particles, or the space–time continuum? Do the entities in scientists’ explanatory models and theories (for example, Higgs bosons, selfish genes) actually exist, or are they primarily useful inventions for predicting and controlling the natural world? What consequences might questions about the reality of these entities have for the public perception and understanding of science? But if they are only fictions how is it that they can yield such accurate predictions in many cases? • How different are the knowledge claims of those disciplines that are primarily historical, such as evolutionary biology, cosmology, geology and paleontology, from those that are primarily experimental, such as physics and chemistry? • Should scientists be held morally responsible for the applications of their discoveries? Is there any area of scientific knowledge the pursuit of which is morally unacceptable or morally required? • It has been argued that certain discoveries (such as quantum mechanics, chaos theory, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Einstein's theory of relativity, Darwin's theory of evolution) have had major implications for knowledge outside their immediate field. Why is it that science has the power to inform thinking in other areas of knowledge such as philosophy and religion? To what extent should philosophy and religion take careful note of scientific developments? • What kinds of knowledge are usually included in the category of human science? How do we decide whether a particular area of study is a human science? What are the similarities and differences between the subject matter and methodologies of the various human sciences? • It is sometimes said that mathematical reasoning is a process of logical deduction. If this is true, and if the conclusion of a proof must always be implied by (contained in) its premises, how can there
ever be new mathematical knowledge? • We can use mathematics successfully to model real-world processes. Is this because we create mathematics to mirror the world or because the world is intrinsically mathematical? • In the light of the questions above, is mathematics invented or discovered? • Are all mathematical statements either true or false? • It has been argued that we come to know the number 3 through examples such as three oranges or three cups. Does this support the independent existence of the number 3 and, by extension, numbers in general? If so, what of numbers such as 0, -1, i (the square root of -1) and a trillion? If not, in what sense do numbers exist? • Can mathematics be characterized as a universal language? Answer ONE of the following questions in a blog post.
1) Is faith an emotion? 2) To what degree can emotion be used as a moral jusitification? 3) Should be emotion play a role in evaluating knowledge claims? • To what degree is emotion biological or “hard-wired”, and hence universal to all human beings? To what extent is it shaped by culture and hence displayed differently in different societies?
• What sorts of things count as emotions? Are emotions and feelings the same thing? • Can feelings have a rational basis? Is “emotional intelligence” an oxymoron? Robert Solomon says that emotions are “systems of judgments”, and that “virtually all of our experience is to some degree ‘affective’, and even our most dispassionate judgments…can be adequately understood only within some larger emotional context”. Is he correct in claiming that virtually all sense perception, and reasoning, must involve emotion? • Is it possible to experience an emotion, a feeling, an attitude or sensibility that cannot be expressed in language? Can an emotion, such as love or grief, have its origins in, or be shaped by, language? • Can emotions be trained? To what extent can we control our emotions, not in terms of how we act on them, but what we actually feel? Do cultures select emotions to foster and use? • Are concepts such as solidarity, patriotism and racism examples of collective emotions? • Is faith an emotion, a feeling, or neither? Pick ONE of these questions and respond in a blog post by April 22 Read the article on ToK assignments and post your reflections here by March 14.
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