Group items tagged

A great little interview on the current situation between China and Tibet and why it remains unresolved. Outlines knowledge issues and current problems well for TOK oral presentations.

Well known Harvard academic, Marc Hauser, is questioned about the veracity of some of his research publications.

This could be helpful for this year's TOK Essay Title #2: How important are the opinions of experts in the search for knowledge? Also, makes you realize that just because someone has a PhD and tenure at Harvard doesn't mean you can always trust what they say!!!

"BUSINESSES in nearly every industry were caught off guard by the Great Recession. Few leaders in business - or government, for that matter - seem to have even considered the possibility that an economic downturn of this magnitude could happen. "

"Imagine your city isn't as safe as it used to be. Robberies are on the rise, home invasions are increasing and murder rates have nearly doubled in the past three years. What should city officials do about it? Hire more cops to round up the thugs and lock them away in a growing network of prisons? Or design programs that promise more peace by addressing issues like a faltering economy and underperforming schools? Your answer -- and the reasoning behind it -- can hinge on the metaphor being used to describe the problem, according to new research by Stanford psychologists. Your thinking can even be swayed with just one word, they say."

"Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies Stephen Downes Assiniboine Community College Brandon, Manitoba, Canada Overview The point of an argument is to give reasons in support of some conclusion. An argument commits a fallacy when the reasons offered do not, in fact, support the conclusion. Each fallacy is described in the following format: Name: this is the generally accepted name of the fallacy. Definition: the fallacy is defined. Examples: examples of the fallacy are given. Proof: the steps needed to prove that the fallacy is committed."

"This Big Think special series looks at what taste actually is-from both a scientific and sociological perspective-and why it is that we find some tastes so appealing and others disgusting. "

An entire concept of psychology, Bystander Intervention, developed based on a single news story of a single murder, that of Kitty Genovese in 1964. Some are now suggesting the original story doesn't fit the model to which it gave birth.

Anyone in IB Psych should check this one out!

Try reading a book while doing a crossword puzzle, and that, says author Nicholas Carr, is what you're doing every time you use the Internet. Carr is the author of the Atlantic article Is Google Making Us Stupid? which he has expanded into a book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr believes that the Internet is a medium based on interruption - and it's changing the way people read and process information. We've come to associate the acquisition of wisdom with deep reading and solitary concentration, and he says there's not much of that to be found online.

I think it's good, although it slightly mixes up our nice distinction between sense perception and perception in general, and she actual says "we see things not as they are but as we are" at one point. The title "The Truth in the Lie" evokes one of the current essay titles, and it has a lot to say about ethics 'n stuff.

"Now, as the United States and other Western nations struggle to recover from a debt and property bubble of their own, a growing number of economists are pointing to Japan as a dark vision of the future. Even as the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, prepares a fresh round of unconventional measures to stimulate the economy, there are growing fears that the United States and many European economies could face a prolonged period of slow growth or even, in the worst case, deflation, something not seen on a sustained basis outside Japan since the Great Depression. "

The TOK question here is can you compare Japan of the 1990s with the US and Western Europe of today? To what degree can economists, or any human scientists, suggest that one complex situation is "like" another one?

"Howard Rhiengold, quoting Ernest Hemingway from 1954: "Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him." Have twenty minutes to spare? Even better, have twenty minutes to spare at a staff meeting? Which this video with your staff. Read the accompanying blog post. Talk about the literacies that we need to be helping students in our classrooms to develop."

"One of our true superstars of nonfiction." That's how David Foster Wallace described Lewis Hyde. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Lewis Hyde talks about his book, "Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art." This classic text introduces us to the playful and disruptive side of imagination embodied in trickster mythology. Lewis Hyde is the author of the acclaimed "Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art." He talks with Steve Paulson about the meaning of the word "trickster." His book explores the cultural history of such infamous Trickster figures as Loki and Monkey."

Lewis Hyde's introduction to his book Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. Very good final section on art and Picasso's quote.

"If the cuts have struck a nerve far from this upstate campus and in more than one language, it is in large part because they involve language itself, and some cherished staples of the curriculum. The university announced this fall that it would stop letting new students major in French, Italian, Russian and the classics. The move mirrors similar prunings around the country at other public colleges and universities that are reeling from steep drops in state aid. After a generation of expansion, academic officials are being forced to lop entire majors. More often than not, foreign languages - European ones in particular - are on the chopping block. The reasons for their plight are many. Some languages may seem less vital in a world increasingly dominated by English. Web sites and new technologies offer instant translations. The small, interactive classes typical of foreign language instruction are costly for universities. But the paradox, some experts in higher education say, is that many schools are eliminating language degrees and graduate programs just as they begin to embrace an international mission: opening campuses abroad, recruiting students from overseas and talking about graduating citizens of the world. The University at Albany's motto is "The World Within Reach." "

The TOK issue here is whether or not European foreign languages are necessary or valuable and thus, whether or not their elimination is a loss to higher education.