monorn Posted January 12, 2011 Report Share Posted January 12, 2011 HelloI was wondering if people had any tips for me on my topic I chose. I have "Doubt is the key to knowledge (persian proverb). TO what extent is this true in two areas of knowledge.I was thinking of using Science and Historythoughts? ideas?Thanks! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Glau Posted January 12, 2011 Report Share Posted January 12, 2011 This title works for almost any area because they all contain hints of doubt in them. I think the essay will be more geared towards the "key to knowledge" part of the proverb. Connecting those two (doubt, knowledge) will be the "TOK" part of the essay that they'll be looking for. Either science works because doubt leads to curiosity usually and for history same thing I guess. But those should work great if you can work them good Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fan Posted January 12, 2011 Report Share Posted January 12, 2011 three key words in the claim.doubt, key knowledgebefore you start your essay. try to brainstorm, any other words that you can relate to three mentioned above. I found this a very effectice way of getting my ideas all together. From brainstorming you get a lot of ideas. After brainstorming look for the weak and strong points so that you can filter out the weak ones.I would think mathematics can be used as a way of knowing for this. Most mathematically discoveries are made through doubt. e.g Pythagorus theorumalso also in science there is doubt. scientists formulate a hypothesis. then they try to prove it wrong. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
∫ Jorge δx Posted January 12, 2011 Report Share Posted January 12, 2011 If you doubt something you've been told, you're going to want to prove it yourself. When you find something anomalous in it, you'll change that something you've been told into your own theory/belief about it. It's the way science (and everything else) has been progressing ever since the days of antiquity. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeG Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 I know that it's been said before, but Cognitive Dissonance can be a very big issue/point in this topic, even if you discuss the aspects of it implicitly. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pumkinns Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 doubting science and history:you choose the best two:well if your talking about doubt, you can bring up for:SCIENCE: 1-people doubted the shape of the earth. and there was an argument where people thought it was flat, then it was proved wrong.2-theory of evolution- which was recently falsified, because scientist doubted it, and this led them to go deeper and deeper into this part of science. till they came up with their last theory3-bigbang theory. was it right or wrong? History:1- well history can be easily doubted, because history was written by people, and well, people will never tell u accurate things, and sometime they can lie. or they can tell you what has happened form their point of view. this causes history to be inaccurate in some way. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Oh well I need help! I have my final hand-in on Friday, and Ive written a quite good essay on Natural Sciences and defined doubt, knowledge and all of that. But mu problem is that I need another area of knowledge - I frist started out with religion but appareantly I did not have any good arguments for the presence of knowledge there, so now Im turning to history, anyone have any examples on an event to use to show that history can and has been doubted? Except for maybe holocaust? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeG Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 Talk about Bias and propaganda. As a counter argument you can say that History is based of something that occurred in the real world, so something must have happened for people to base their biases and opinions on. Try to come up with something new, the examiners will expect to see something like the Holocaust, but if you can't think of anything else, include it. Maybe try to talk about something that happened in your country, region, that is quite unexplored, but still has enough information on it. Also, in all areas of knowledge, you may doubt something that is now believed to be "correct"!Even though it's not as prevalent in art, it's prevalent in other AoKs Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iber2011 Posted February 6, 2011 Report Share Posted February 6, 2011 well I give up on tok....I've changed my whole essay 5 times and still the teacher is saying it's not good enough....but still can someone please read my essay and give your view on it?? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeForDisaster Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 The last time I worked on my essay was months ago and turns out I chose natural sciences and art and now it's due in a week. Natural sciences is somewhat easy, but I'm not sure what arguments I should give for art. Or would it be easier just to change it to something like, say, mathematics or ethics etc.? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kagesou Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 This site looks really good for this question - http://www.ibcram.com/Essay.php the examples that the site uses talk about doubt so it might be useful Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pieee Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 Hii. My TOK essay is due in a couple days so it would be helpful if I could get some tips and advice before that. My two AOKs are history and natural scienceSo questions...1. I was wondering if I had to specify which natural science to write about? Is it okay for my examples to be scattered across all the disciplines within natural science? Or should I focus on one?2. Our teacher talked a lot about personal examples and a personal voice and whatnot. How can I do that for history? Shouldn't I be using historical examples instead of personal ones...?3. If a substantial proportion of the essay should be made up of personal examples, then isn't it possible to fabricate examples that are relevant to one's point? I'm pretty sure this understanding of 'personal examples' is wrong... could anyone please clarify?THANK YOU!! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuka Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 i did this one! i really enjoyed writing about it.. i chose natural sciences and math as the two areas of knowledge to explore.Hii. My TOK essay is due in a couple days so it would be helpful if I could get some tips and advice before that. My two AOKs are history and natural scienceSo questions...1. I was wondering if I had to specify which natural science to write about? Is it okay for my examples to be scattered across all the disciplines within natural science? Or should I focus on one?2. Our teacher talked a lot about personal examples and a personal voice and whatnot. How can I do that for history? Shouldn't I be using historical examples instead of personal ones...?3. If a substantial proportion of the essay should be made up of personal examples, then isn't it possible to fabricate examples that are relevant to one's point? I'm pretty sure this understanding of 'personal examples' is wrong... could anyone please clarify?THANK YOU!!you can scatter around the disciplines and stuff within one area of knowledge, but if you do a natural science for the IB, then it would be good if you related it to that science because it gives a personal connection. like, for me, i talked about natural sciences in general, and the whole falsification thing, but then i used an example from biology about the 3 laws of cells and how one changed after the previous law was falsified. hence doubt is key to knowledge.yes, definitely use historical examples, not personal ones. by personal, you can say that 'by taking history in IB, i have found that even in this area of knowledge, doubt plays/does not play an important role...'my example for math as my area of knowledge was taking my math portfolio topic, and saying that if we didn't believe that there was such thing as infinity, then the portfolio would not be possible. there was the personal connection, since i was talking about my math portfolio, but i was still focused on talking about math as my area of knowledge. for math, doubt isn't the key to knowledge, because if you don't believe in infinity, then many mathematical formulas would not be possible.i had a lot of examples for both the natural sciences and for math, since the question tells you to focus on only two areas of knowledge.so, have fun with this essay, think of creative examples and you'll find this essay enjoyable to write. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pieee Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 Hii. My TOK essay is due in a couple days so it would be helpful if I could get some tips and advice before that. My two AOKs are history and natural scienceSo questions...1. I was wondering if I had to specify which natural science to write about? Is it okay for my examples to be scattered across all the disciplines within natural science? Or should I focus on one?2. Our teacher talked a lot about personal examples and a personal voice and whatnot. How can I do that for history? Shouldn't I be using historical examples instead of personal ones...?3. If a substantial proportion of the essay should be made up of personal examples, then isn't it possible to fabricate examples that are relevant to one's point? I'm pretty sure this understanding of 'personal examples' is wrong... could anyone please clarify?THANK YOU!!you can scatter around the disciplines and stuff within one area of knowledge, but if you do a natural science for the IB, then it would be good if you related it to that science because it gives a personal connection. like, for me, i talked about natural sciences in general, and the whole falsification thing, but then i used an example from biology about the 3 laws of cells and how one changed after the previous law was falsified. hence doubt is key to knowledge.yes, definitely use historical examples, not personal ones. by personal, you can say that 'by taking history in IB, i have found that even in this area of knowledge, doubt plays/does not play an important role...'my example for math as my area of knowledge was taking my math portfolio topic, and saying that if we didn't believe that there was such thing as infinity, then the portfolio would not be possible. there was the personal connection, since i was talking about my math portfolio, but i was still focused on talking about math as my area of knowledge. for math, doubt isn't the key to knowledge, because if you don't believe in infinity, then many mathematical formulas would not be possible.i had a lot of examples for both the natural sciences and for math, since the question tells you to focus on only two areas of knowledge.so, have fun with this essay, think of creative examples and you'll find this essay enjoyable to write. oh wow. that was really helpful.i think im still struggling to get the hang of writing TOK essays experience and habit in general has made me a little reluctant in giving non-academic/personal examples :\ always had to back up essays with solid evidence. mehh i guess i'll get there eventually i dont take history.. so its okay to ignore the 'I' factor?thank you so much!!!btw, is it okay for me to know your predicted score? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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