You Can Lead a Class to Areas of Knowledge...

I'm fascinated by how wrong I was about the last post--thank you. I was certain many of you would head for the Natural Sciences in search of unexpiring truths, surprisingly anachronistic facts, or both. Kudos for your original approaches.

This week, I leave you no choice. As shared through Theory of Knowledge.net's monthly newsletter, please read this article in The Independent. Consider what it reveals about science, about journalism, and about our willingness (eagerness? need?) to believe both. What ways of knowing contribute to our credulity? Please extract and discuss the implications of two knowledge questions. Due Sunday, as usual.

Can Knowledge Be Overdue?

Our Library is undergoing a transformation this summer. Along with the new layout, new computers, and new home for the Technology office, many old books are making way for the change (that's a bibliophile's gentle way of saying we're recycling them). As I helped to clear out part of the History section, a question occurred to me: at what point do original ideas become historical curiosities? Are there circumstances in which there can be a universal answer to this question? Are there ideas that do not go out of date? If the answer to this is discipline specific, are there exceptions? Can a mathematical theorem prove Euro-centric? Can a book entitled Our Expanding World: The Age of Exploration provide objective accounts of history, despite its titular perspective? For this week's post, identify two moments of knowledge from different AoKs and examine this train of thought in each. You needn't answer all of my questions, but you should answer some, and you may come up with questions of your own.

Feeling Overextended?

Welcome to summer, Knowers. To ease into our intellectual explorcation, please begin with what you're already doing: share your EE research question; extract a knowledge question, couched in explicitly TOK language; apply and answer the question in a context other than your EE. As will be the case all summer, your post is due by the local end of Sunday.