TOK Essay: Prescribed Titles November 2012 Questions 2 & 6

This is not a book review, but perhaps the best thing we’ve read this summer – at least as regards TOK – is Stephen Law’s book, Believing Bullshit: How not to get sucked into an intellectual black hole, Prometheus Books, New York, 2012, 271p.

Law explores eight strategies used by people to defend their beliefs at all costs – usually at the expense of a particularly sound rational explanation. The book has one of the most lucid descriptions of the scientific method we have come across (pp37-8) and explores in detail the notion of the testing/refuting of statements of belief.

In fact, two entire chapters (Chapter 1: ‘Playing the Mystery Card’ and Chapter 2: ‘ “But it Fits!” and The Blunderbuss’), seem to be tailor made for Questions 2 and 6 of the Prescribed Titles for November 2012. In the first chapter, Law explores arguments used to justify belief in the traditional Christian conception of God and a strong counter argument in the form of the evidential problem of evil. In the second chapter, he examines the beliefs of Young Earth Creationists with numerous interesting passages on notions such as falsification, bias and, what is especially useful for your essay, the use of evidence/data in the confirmation of theories.

Law argues (pp75-8) that in order for a theory to be strongly confirmed by evidence/data, it must satisfy at least THREE conditions: it must make PREDICTIONS that are:

• Clear and precise
• Surprising
• true

It’s well worth spending the time on these chapters as part of your research into TOK Questions 2 & 6 of the November 2012 list.

Good luck – you still have two months to the deadline and this book should help guide you through.

ToK Essay: Prescribed Titles Nov 2012/May 2013

So now the Prescribed Titles for Southern and Northern hemisphere students have been split - it's SIX questions for each set of essays.  The deadlines will remain as usual - November for Southern henisphere schools and May for Norther hemisphere schools - but we don't know yet whether the questions will be the SAME.

It doesn't matter.  What matters is what you do and. most especially, HOW you approach your essay preparation and writing.

Below you'll find some handy hints courtesy of ibtoktutor.com to help you get your head around some of the problems that face students when writing their TOK Essays.

Some problems to avoid in your TOK essays 2012-2013

A series of snippets of advice on how to improve your TOK essays

Clichéd examples

These are examples that are over-used and well worn and usually don’t help to advance your argument.

They end up being over-described and largely stated as if understood without any real support for an argument or exploration of knowledge issues.

Examples to avoid by Areas Of Knowledge:

History: the holocaust (and World War 2 in general); Adolf Hitler; Stalin

N Science: flat earth theory; heliocentric theory; model of the atom

Maths: 2 + 2 = 4 (or other alternatives)

Arts: Picasso’s Guernica; Mona Lisa

Ethics: trolley problem (or its variations)

H Science: Piraha tribe’s lack of number vocab; Sapir-Whorf

Try to draw your examples from relevant personal experiences/reading and from REAL LIFE CURRENT AFFAIRS in different fields of knowledge.

For more handy hints like this on essay technique call on ibtoktutor.com

You can talk to someone directly through SKYPE or email them with your essay at info@ibtoktutor.com

TOK Websites

http://www.squidoo.com/problems-to-avoid-in-your-theory-of-knowledge-tok-essays-1

Some interesting advice being given here - very important advice and very brief - which could help to refine your essay writing technique no end.

These sort of hints can make all the difference between borderline grades - one mark can make the difference between a Grade D and Grade C.

And, even though it pains us to think so, if you heed the simple advice, it could save you from the dreaded Grade E which means you may not get your Diploma.

Keep working hard!

TOK Websites

http://www.squidoo.com/theory-of-knowledge-forum

Not only does this site give you a link to an interview with Ray Kurzweil, someone we admire for his innovative thinking about consciousness (see our posts under this tab), but it also engages you in an on-line debate which should help you think about the topic for the May 2012 TOK Essay Question 8.  Moreover, some of the books recommended on the subject of the debate look interesting in themselves.  Definitely a worth a glance!

TOK Websites

There are two sites you should be following avidly (one of them especially if you're based in the UK):

1/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/genre/factual/scienceandnature

This is the Radio 4 Podcast website which has recordings of some of the best archive material on science and nature, as well as philosophy, politics, arts, history, ethics and mathematics.  In fact, every AOK relevant to your TOK essay and presentation research.  The podcasts last from anything between 15 - 45 minutes.  The recent one we followed was a fascinating journey into the history of the brain...

2/ http://fr.twitter.com/#!/TOKtweet

If you've been following the toktutor tweets above, another great tweet to follow is 'TOKtweet' as it gives you up to the minute links to web articles on all aspects of TOK and is authored by no less a figure than the writer Richard Lagemaat.  Superb for TOK essay and presentation research.

Examples

Natural Sciences and Human Sciences

Following on from the precautionary tale of the last post, here’s another approach to the skeptical tradition of thinking about knowledge claims, especially against those made about paranormal events, aliens, miracles and pseudo-scientific theories:

‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ (Carl Sagan)

A popularized version of:

‘An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof’ (Marcello Truzzi)

These statements originate in:

1/ the thinking of the Scottish Philosopher David Hume: “A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence” and

2/ the thinking of the French Mathematician Pierre Laplace: “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”

See a religious examination of the statement here: http://carm.org/extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence

and a medical (not literally, but philosophical!) examination here: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/extraproof.html

and a skeptic’s examination here: http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2008/01/extraordinary-c.html

Which one do you find most compelling and why?

Some knowledge issues relating to this approach: How far is the skeptical approach to knowledge a practical one? To what extent does a skeptical approach take us nearer to objective knowledge? In what ways does a skeptical approach help or hinder the search for knowledge? Is skepticism about miracles/aliens (or any other extraordinary claim) justified?

Examples

Ethics and Human Sciences (Politics)

A Precautionary tale for cautious times

‘...action without evidence is justified...’

Towards the end of the third part (itself subtitled, 'The Shadows in the Cave') of a fascinating documentary entitled, “The Power of Nightmares”, the narrator explains how, in the climate of fear subsequent to the 9/11 episode, politicians have turned to a scientific principle to justify their actions: the precautionary principle.

This principle emerged in the early 1990s out of discussions between scientists on the topic of global warming. These experts argued that in the absence of scientific evidence as to whether the polar icecaps were indeed melting and the earth’s surface heating up, governments should nevertheless gear their policies to preventing or minimising the possible effects of global warming. In short, it was justified to plough money into research into the phenomenon as a precautionary measure and wait for the evidence to emerge at a later date. Fairly unscientific approach, it seems.

Now, it appears that governments have taken this principle out of the scientific realm and into the ethical which begs the question: is it justified to act (eg. Incarcerate people for supposed terrorism or invade Iraq) without having good grounds or evidence to do so?

According to the ‘evidentialist’ view, the answer is a firm NO. First, we need to test any claims which propose how we should or should not act, which usually means that we need evidence in advance of committing the act. So, as far as the invasion of Iraq is concerned, it shouldn’t have gone ahead because there was no prior evidence of the presence of weapons of mass destruction.

However, the evidentialist position is not as solid as it first appears. If our belief in the fact that Iraq is a threat is justified by referring to the belief that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, then presumably the belief that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction must be itself justified by reference to a further belief that Iraq has obtained such weapons. This further belief must itself be justified by reference to another belief in how the weapons were obtained and this chain of reference appears to go on ad infinitum. The only counter to this potential infinite regress is to point to a belief which is somehow self-evident, which is pretty precarious for an evidentialist who holds that all our beliefs must be grounded on observable evidence.

According to the precautionary principle, the answer is a resounding YES. It doesn’t matter that there’s no evidence, we are simply acting to prevent the Iraqis from using any weapons of mass destruction because we distrust them. And if someone asks why we distrust the Iraqis, it is enough to say that this doesn’t matter; we have to set a preventative strategy into action as it’s only a matter of time before they start to take over. The evidence of weapons of mass destruction, we are assured, will arrive in time.

The precautionary principle seems to rest on a version of a theory of knowledge known as ‘reliabilism’ which states roughly: it is justified to believe in a state of affairs P

1/ if P is true

2/ if my belief that P is brought about by a reliable mechanism

A ‘reliable mechanism’ might be many things: my senses, my gut feeling, my instinct.

At this point, I hand you over to the discussion of reliabilism by Stephen Law at his blog ‘But I just know’ who provides a lucid explanation of the use and abuse of this idea.

Whatever you do, take the time to watch the three part documentary as a perspective on the word in which we now live.