YIS TOK

It has been jarring to learn in recent years that a reproducible result may actually be the rarest of birds. Replication, the ability of another lab to reproduce a finding, is the gold standard of science, reassurance that you have discovered something true. But that is getting harder all the time. With the most accessible truths already discovered, what remains are often subtle effects, some so delicate that they can be conjured up only under ideal circumstances, using highly specialized techniques.

Since 1955, The Journal of Irreproducible Results has offered "spoofs, parodies, whimsies, burlesques, lampoons and satires" about life in the laboratory. Among its greatest hits: "Acoustic Oscillations in Jell-O, With and Without Fruit, Subjected to Varying Levels of Stress" and "Utilizing Infinite Loops to Compute an Approximate Value of Infinity." The good-natured jibes are a backhanded celebration of science. What really goes on in the lab is, by implication, of a loftier, more serious nature.

Dr. Bronowski thought that the uncertainty principle should therefore be called the principle of tolerance. Pursuing knowledge means accepting uncertainty. Heisenberg's principle has the consequence that no physical events can ultimately be described with absolute certainty or with "zero tolerance," as it were. The more we know, the less certain we are.

"This clip from SAMSARA showing food production and consumption has been getting a lot of attention!"

An investigation into critical thinking

"Such are the limits of our own concentration and emotional resources, having a serious and appropriate concern for ourselves and the handful of people who deeply depend upon us must frequently involve a calculated restriction of sympathy for, and interest in, others - a due recognition, in other words, that (despite what the news insists, for its own commercial reasons) not everything that happens out there over the Vietnam sea and the Malay hills can or should be our business."

"Recent brain studies show extensive parallels between the effects of certain addictive drugs and experiences of being in love. Both activate the brain's reward system, can overwhelm us so that we forget about other things and can inspire withdrawal when they are no longer available. It seems it isn't just a cliché that love is like a drug: in terms of effects on the brain, they may be neurochemically equivalent."

"New Web Series Will Challenge Your Narrow Definition Of Art"

"We live in a hyper-rational, data-driven time; geeks are our kings and queens. When something inexplicable happens, we are in awe, suddenly, of concepts that the ancients took for granted: the suffering of innocents, supernatural causes, and twists of fate."

"Malaysian Airlines MH370: what we don't know can make compelling journalism"

" Life must matter; you must make sure it does. This is what Goldstein aptly calls the "ethos of the extraordinary," the need to carve your permanence in this life so that it survives after your death. Blending Plato and Dylan Thomas, the message would go like this: rage, rage against the ordinariness of sameness. "It is, in the end, the only kind of immortality for which we may hope," Goldstein writes."

Informative and compelling video about the Nocebo Effect

TOK Subject Guide

"This month, the Guardian launched a campaign in conjunction with Change.org (the petition is here) to end "female genital mutilation" (FGM) in the UK-see Dominic Wilkinson's recent analysis on this blog. I support this campaign and I believe that FGM is impermissible. Indeed, I think that all children, whether male, female, or intersex, should be protected from having parts of their genitals removed unless there is a pressing medical indication; I think this is so regardless of the cultural or religious affiliations of the child's parents; and I have given some arguments for this view here, here, here, here, and here. But note that some commentators are loath to accept so broadly applied an ethical principle: to discuss FGM in the same breath as male circumcision, they think, is to "trivialize" the former and to cause all manner of moral confusion."

"A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration. The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1,015 people aged 16 to 75, lists ten misconceptions held by the British public. Among the biggest misconceptions are:"

But this wacky stunt performed on Stewart's 'Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge' dissertation was all done for a reason. It was designed to raise awareness about the 'blind acceptance of English language conventions in academia' and to also make a statement about Aboriginal culture and colonialism.

"The acclaimed graphic artist and journalist Joe Sacco on the limits of satire - and what it means if Muslims don't find it funny"

"A northern-Italian miller in the sixteenth century, known as Menocchio, literate but not a member of the literary élite, held a number of unconventional theological beliefs. He believed that the soul died with the body, that the world was created out of a chaotic substance, not ex nihilo, and that it was more important to love one's neighbor than to love God. He found eccentric justification for these beliefs in the few books he read, among them the Decameron, the Bible, the Koran, and "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville," all in translation. For his pains, Menocchio was dragged before the Inquisition several times, tortured, and, in 1599, burned at the stake. He was one of thousands who met such a fate."

"the phrase #JeSuisCharlie-"I am Charlie"-was soon adopted worldwide by individuals and organizations eager to stand in solidarity with the magazine. But before we were all Charlie Hebdo, before Charlie Hebdo was a symbol of free speech and editorial courage, Charlie Hebdo was, for many, a symbol of Islamophobia, its cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed less an exercise in political courage than a gratuitous provocation of a marginalized religious group that has long been made to feel unwelcome in France. This is worth remembering, even now, even if, like me, you don't agree with the charges. Missing in much of the coverage of the events of the past few days is a sense of the demographic context in which they occurred. "We're talking about a country with 6 million Muslims, the biggest population in Europe, where Muslims experience all sorts of discriminations on a day-to-day basis," the French-Algerian journalist Nabila Ramdani told Sky News in 2011. "Many view [the Charlie Hebdo cartoons] as pure racism dressed up as satire.""