Shock waves in the human sciences! Six more of Brian Wansink’s published papers are being retracted, Cornell University announced September 20 , bringing the total to 13, and the professor has resigned in disgrace. It is not just scientific peers who are affected as Brian Wansink’s flawed methodology is exposed and his papers are withdrawn from journals. Millions of ordinary […]
Read more Are we on “the path back into darkness, tribalism, feudalism, superstition, and belief in magic”? The apparent upsurge of belief in astrology has sent one of my favourite bloggers and podcasters, neurologist and skeptic Steven Novella, into a paroxysm of sheer frustration . How can anything so thoroughly debunked as astrology make inroads back into public belief? But – stay […]
Read more May in the northern hemisphere. The return of long daylight. But also IB exams. Tired students. Tired teachers. Time to take a class into the calm and beauty of pattern, with gentle TOK reflection on the deep intersections of mathematics, nature, art and technology. This year, my favourite vehicle is the animated sculpture of John […]
Read more “In the moral domain…empathy leads us astray,” argues Paul Bloom , professor of psychology at Yale University. “We are much better off if we give up on empathy and become rational deliberators motivated by compassion and care for others.” Bloom adopts a provocative stance to focus attention on what we in IB Theory of Knowledge would call “ways […]
Read more Is the study of mathematics really a gateway toward empathy? I’m not fully convinced by the argument presented by mathematician Roger Antonsen , but I like him for making it. We need all the empathy we can get in our world. Certainly, his mathematical visualizations do demonstrate the importance of mental flexibility and imagination in mathematics, and do stand metaphorically […]
Read more Where do new ideas come from? Is it inevitable, I wonder, that in trying to talk with students about using ways of knowing creatively I’m inclined to turn to individual stories of “getting ideas”? Today I’d simply like to share two or three resources for raising discussion of creativity in class. The first is a very short […]
Read more On this fine day in May, most Theory of Knowledge students in the northern hemisphere are surely preoccupied with only a certain aspect of knowledge: how well to demonstrate it, in relevant forms, on examinations. So today let me suggest that tired students deserve to be invited away from exam stress through their senses and […]
Read more Stories have power. In the scams of con artists, they have the power to “get you emotionally transported enough that you stop asking questions, or at least the questions that matter.” So warns Maria Konnikova, whose recently published book The Confidence Game prompted my post last week, and this week. At the same time, however, […]
Read more “It was not an easy decision to share a brutal image of a drowned child,” acknowledges the Director of Emergencies of Human Rights Watch. As media around the world take this decision to share the photo, it has affected political debate on the crisis of refugees trying to enter Europe. But why? What role does such an image play in our shared knowledge?
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