Week 14: Review and Assignments

This week we finished looking at our 3 ideas about Natural Science:

1. Scientific knowing is an evolving system that limits uncertainty through observation, experimentation, and inductive/deductive reasoning.
2. Science as a language, ethos, and community reveals innate features of human identity and processing.
3. Scientific objectivity and cultural diversity, particularly religious knowing, are often at odds for various reasons. Why?

Activities in Class:

1. We focused predominantly on idea 2 regarding Science as a collection of communal thought rooted in trust of social contract, ethics, and the shared goals and purpose of science.

2. We grappled with 4 scenarios in which students described solutions and approaches from a scientific perspective.  While our natural tendency is to think that Science offers no solutions in the realm of Ethics (having to code switch to a new area of knowledge to develop solutions), I posit that the fundamental nature of Science is not an arbitrary collection of data and observation, but a meaningful pursuit of knowledge that seeks the betterment of humankind through practical methodology.

3. We continued our analysis of Pseudo-

Science, discussing the devastating implications of politically strong counter-scientific programs, such as Matthias Rath and HIV "vitamin therapy" in Africa (around 171,000 new HIV infections and 343,000 deaths could have been prevented between 1999 and 2007).

4. Lastly, We briefly discussed your next Socratic Seminar on the topic "Science and Religion".  Your team must work through the model of argument-building, reflecting on your own understanding of TOK topics, and design a PoK question related to this topic to research and discuss. Be ready to use actual sources to defend claims in your seminar.  Prepare a real conversation from your thesis and make sure everyone in your team is able to contribute a new thought to the argument/observation.

Our Socratic Seminar will be Wednesday, May 8th, 2013.

Have a good weekend!  We will meet again Monday, April 29th to finish Natural Science (idea 3, and controversial topics like evolution) and research for the Socratic Seminar.