Posts

Time can be tricky

Recently, I came across the article about peer review in natural sciences. And what intrigued me the most was the information that two-thirds of researchers, nowadays, failed at reproducing another scientist’s experiment. That shocked me. And as I was thinking about this problem a few issues arose. Firstly, as I read in the article, the problem of reproducibility is the result of modern want of big breakthroughs. News, TV, and the Internet constantly expect scientists to bring to them new and shocking scientific theories. Even as a global society we are used to quick and new solutions (because of the Internet culture-we do not have to wait long for the answer, we can have it in a second ). Therefore, scientists are always in a hurry and they want to discover or invent more rapidly and bring new, better solutions to our current biggest problems. And because of the short time in which scientists are expected to bring the results of their work, they make mistakes. It seems like a p

Am I an expert?

Last week I was going back home with two of my brothers and my dad from the family trip. As we were talking, suddenly I realized that my little brother, who is now seven, kept asking many questions and when my other brother or I answered to his question he still waited for my father's answer. Firstly I thought that it might be because our dad is his role model and then he believes that my father has greater knowledge so  naturally he is more likely than me to answer correctly. This got me thinking about experts. In this situation, my dad was an expert and my little brother-a person which desired knowledge. We can observe that in media, especially tv news or in newspapers, when analyzing a global, political or any other issue mostly the experts occur and provide not also the historical facts and scientific theories, but also their point of view. Of course in the ideal world, when each person thinks critically and independently, he or she can create their own opinion by looking for

Am I limited by my own language?

    But really, am I? On my last ToK classes we are discussing a lot about the language. How language affects our world's view and our beliefs, the problems with translations and meaning of the words ect. So as I heard about those obstacles and problems that language is, I started wondering (because on my classes we also talked about different languages and untranslatable words) about limitations that I have because of speaking my native language. Is my mother's tongue a set of beliefs and emotions of my forefathers? Because the language I am using now, was once invented and words were made up to express certain feelings and needs. Of course it is always changing and current society is adapting the language to its needs. However, the past can still affect language. For example, if the country was once full of farmers, then in the language may exist more farmer's words in comparison to, for example, to country in which the majority of citizens work as miners. 

Unseen knowledge

Some time ago my friend told me this short story: I was going time from school by bus. That day I felt a bit annoyed because I forgot to take my headphones and my way back home looks as if it's going to be quite long because of the traffic in the city. So I sat be the window next to a group of teens. Sitting next to them I heart their school stories, what they did today at school and so on. You might think that it is just a normal, everyday situation, but I started to think: Well, I go back go by bus every day for past 6 six or so. However, I cannot remember listening that kind of conversations were I was 9. I remember talking and hearing about some children TV shows or new toys someone received. Does it mean that I did not hear conversations about more teen issues just because I was not a teen or I wasn't interested in that topics?   My friend is also an IB student so we started to think and discuss this question. From the previous question the knowledge question arose Can

Table- a wooden thing with four wooden legs

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  Language is vague. We might want to say in Spanish that we love someone we say te quiero we also mean I choose you . Many other examples of ambiguity of language may be risen form different languages which prove that every language is vague. One world can mean two different things and it can cause discord between people. As we know, language is based on generalisations. We know how the table should look like so we name nearly any wooden object with four legs a table.  Generalisations make our lives easier, so we do not need to say that we see a wooden thing with four wooden legs, we simply assume that it is a table. Thus on the one hand generalisations facilitates humans' communication but on the other hand it can make it more difficult and cause discord. From this assumption the question may arise: To what extend generalisations are helpful and when they are simply obstacles? Obviously, we would not be able to function in every-day life with simple generalisations of objec

Knowledge is limited?

 Can we see what a bare human eye cannot see? We may say that we do it right now, but in reality we don't. If a bare human eye can't see a particular thing then scientists and engineers cooperate to invent a technology that will enable humans to do so. Miroscopes, telescopes- they were produced to enable humans to see what is not possible to be seen for a human eye. But is it possible for humans to gain knowledge in sciences when they cannot actually see a phenomenon?  There are scientists that claim a possible knowledge claims without actually seeing a phenomenon, however, it is never called a fact. Even apart from sciences, in every day life people usually do not believe if they have not seen that. For example, 2 weeks ago when the US elections ended I was at school and my friend told me that Donald Trump won the elections. I could not believe that. Even though I knew he was a strong candidate, but the media that I was surrounded, social media, celebrities talki

Why we might never find all the answers

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 Since I was little I always loved sci-fi movies. Expolring the universe and interstellar journeys fascinates me even right now. Recently, I've been particularly interested in the first human journey to Mars. right now NASA with cooperation with other international companies are testing new rockets and technology that would be able to take men kind to Mars in the near future. I watched plenty of documentaries and conferences about the obstacles that right now unables NASA to complete this mission. 2 particularly interesting videos about sending humans to Mars which made me think about this issue   As I was watching I thought a lot about the obstacles that scientists need to overcome in order to send humans to Mars. Of course the cause of these obstacles is our current knowledge which unables scientists to produce more technologically developed devices.  But what is really an obstacle? Is it our knowledge or is it the important materials which do not exist? Can our k