TOK Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BRTrEX9rcw

Inductive and Deductive Knowledge - Week 8 TOK

In out last TOK lesson, we discussed some theories and scientific experiments and tests. One test was about writing positive words (e.g. love) on one box on rice, and writing negative words (e.g. hate) on another. Apparently after 3 weeks, the negative box was more mouldy than the positive box. As a sceptic, I don't believe in this sort of thing, as there is no evidence behind it besides a youtube video (how can we trust that??)

Deductive Knowledge (Narrowing Down)
This form of reasoning is from more specific to more general. You begin with a theory about a subject or topic. That is then narrowed down to a hypothesis that we can test. It is then narrowed down even further to collect observations to address the hypothesis. This leads us to be able to test the hypothesis with confirmation of our original theories. More narrow and focus is to testing and confirming hypothesis than Inductive. For example, every animal that eats mice is a cat. Rover eats mice. Therefore, Rover is a cat. The goal of deductive reasoning is to arrive at a valid chain of reasoning, in which each statement holds up to testing, but it is possible for deductive reasoning to be both valid and unsound.

Inductive Knowledge (Generalizing)
Works the other way of Deductive, moving from more specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. With inductive reasoning, you start with specific observations. Then you begin to detect patterns and regularities, then formulate an un-final hypotheses that we can explore, and finally ending by developing some general conclusions or theories. More open-ended and exploratory.Isaac Newton, for example, famously used inductive reasoning to develop a theory of gravity Using observations, people can develop a theory to explain those observations, and seek out disproof of that theory.

What surprises me about the way science has progressed?

Science continues to amaze me the more I learn about it. It blows my mind. Even in the last 60 years, just to think how far we have come, from landing of the moon, to developing technology that 40 years ago would have been depicted in sci-fi movies as fiction.
There is now an opposing possibility to religion. For years, religion ruled the world, and apart from the different kinds of religion, there was not really any other options. Now, scientists have questioned the existence of god, and built on this question by such ideas as the big bang theory.
I am surprised first and foremost, about how science even began. The first ever scientific geniuses who began questioning the environment around them. How with such little knowledge of the world were they able to come up with such amazing theories?
What surprises me further, is that the more the human race goes on, the more we discover and the more we learn about the world. We learn new things every day, whether its discovering a new star, or the latest iphone, or even finding a new type of beetle in the Amazon.

Link between the MMR vaccine and autism

One key argument in this case, is that babies who were previously healthy, normal kids, become autistic after they have had the vaccine. The parents of these babies claim that their babies were 'poisoned', and only became autistic after having the shot. However, many argue that there is absolutely no link between the vaccine and the babies autism. I argue that there is probably a link between the two. Evidence behind this, is many countries around the world have withdrawn the vaccine, and have such low autism rates, as opposed to America, who still has the vaccine, and every one in 150 children are autistic, and 1 in 6 have developmental disorders. Other evidence backing this up is in 1988, 2/3 vaccines released had to be withdrawn due to safety reasons, which shows there is history of unsafe vaccines. In other research, 12 children were given the MMR vaccine, and within days, 8 of them showed signs of behavioural disorders. Also, in March 2008, the Federal Claims court listened to one family and concluded that there was a connection between the vaccine and their autistic child.
In this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIlbmynnSew&feature=related, from 4:25 onwards, is also evidence there is a connection.
Opposing evidence shows results of tests carried out on hundreds of children who have had the vaccine and have not been affected.

Lesson 1 - 02/02/11 - Double Peroid

Today was our first Theory of Knowledge Lesson with Mr. Smith. When we all walked into the classroom, we were very unsure as to what to expect, as we never had has Mr. Smith before, neither had we ever taken this subject before.
However todays double lesson was really enjoyable. We were pleasantly surprised with Mr. Smith, as he turned out to be a very calm, nice man. This, like we talked about in class, made me instantly interested in the lesson, because if the teacher had come across as strict, grumpy and unfair, I would have lost interest in the subject straight away.
After explaining what TOK would involve and what the subject was about, the highlight of the lesson for me was when Mr. Smith walked out of the classroom, came in again (looking strict and grumpy), made us stand up and almost sing the school song (he singled out Bridie). This was pretty funny and added some great humor into out lesson, as well as making us think.
I also enjoyed discussing the word 'Truth', in our group and then as a whole class. We tried to define what the word meant, and a particularly interesting part was when we connected beliefs and God with the word truth. We talked about how religion and god are not necessarily truth, as there is no definite facts or evidence that there is. The only so-called 'evidence' is in the form of human miracles (which could be 'coincidences') and the bible (which itself is not proven to be factual). But religion and god are beliefs that we have grown up with, influenced by different cultures and upbringings.