Tag Archives: knowing how

Reliability in psychological science: methodology in crisis?

151116 reprodproj
(by Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP IB blog) “Scientific truth is a moving target,” wrote the editors of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) a decade ago. “But is it inevitable, as John Ioannidis argues…that the majority of findings are actually false?” In the decade since the editors posed this question, the psychological sciences have been shaken by further challenges to their credibility, including some widely reported controversies. It was August of this year, however, that brought the most significant shock waves, when the Reproducibility Project of the Open Science Collaboration announced its conclusions – that most of the articles published in leading psychological journals were unreliable. Most! This crisis in knowledge – in both its nature and its interpretations — is acutely relevant to us as teachers of Theory of Knowledge, aiming as we do to treat the human sciences with contemporary understanding. Continue reading

“It shakes your guts.”: TOK knowing in an adventurous ice climb

(by Eileen Dombrowski, first published in my TOK blog, Oxford University Press) Ice climbing to precipitous heights is not everyone’s idea of a good time. Certainly – most certainly – not mine! But while I find adventurer Will Gadd’s ascent of frozen Niagara Falls essentially horrifying, I’m intrigued at the potential for a stimulating TOK class that emerges from the videos of his climb in January and a video/audio interview he did in June of this year. In this blog, I often suggest fresh material for TOK classes. This time, I’ll go into some detail on how I imagine using it – and please feel free to pick out anything useful to you. Continue reading

Backward Brain Bicycle: memory and knowing how

(by Eileen Dombrowski) “Knowledge”. “Understanding”. “Truth”.  Your students might want to argue with the way Destin Sandlin uses the terms — and so will you — as he struggles to learn how to ride what he calls the Backwards Brain Bicycle. This video is likely to provoke ripples of laughter and to animate discussion on “knowing how” and memory as a way of knowing.  Not a bad lead-up to knowledge questions! Continue reading

Who’s an “Indian”?: classification and implications

classifying

Classification carries implications.

(by Eileen Dombrowski, from OSC TOK blog) Who’s indigenous? And does it matter? These are significant questions, with significant answers. They are relevant to TOK both through the new area of knowledge, indigenous knowledge, and an old area of knowledge, ethics – as well as to all the ways of knowing involved in classifying our concepts, and, in the knowledge framework, to the topic of concepts/language. Two stories in this past month’s news bring these questions to life: a court contest in Canada about who is classified as “aboriginal” and a conflict in Tanzania over whether indigenous people have any claim to their traditional land. Continue reading

How ever did they manage?

(by Eileen Dombrowski, from OSC blog, Sept 20, 2014)   “How ever did they manage?” I ask myself. I’ve spent today at the Mesa Verde World Heritage Site  in Colorado, tromping around pueblo sites and gazing at the cliff dwelling houses of the native peoples of the American southwest. It’s hot out – too hot. How ever did the people get water to drink and irrigate their corn? Simply eating and drinking in this arid environment would be such a problem. Then what comes to my mind is one definition I’ve read of a word that is so difficult to pin down: culture. “Culture,” goes this definition (one of many definitions), “is a set of solutions to problems.” Continue reading