Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

When the Government Tells Poor People How to Live

December 14, 2015

Interesting article on the ethics of government intervention in people’s lives. Much public debate centers around questions discussed in this article: Should governments intervene in people’s personal decisions? If so when? If governments can make a positive impact, does that make it right?

“Residents in some public-housing units in Worcester, Massachusetts, must now get a job or go back to school. If they don’t, they’ll be evicted.”

“Is this the role government ought to be playing in people’s lives? John Stuart Mill condemned such efforts, writing, ‘The only purpose for which power may be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/paternalism/420210/?utm_source=yahoo

Most violence in the world is motivated by personal morality

December 11, 2015

“What motivates someone to be violent? This is a question many people are asking in the wake of the recent mass shootings in California. Most explanations tend to revolve around the core assumption that violence is wrong. If someone is violent, something must be broken in their moral psychology—they are intrinsically evil, they lack self-control, they are selfish, or they fail to understand the pain they cause. However, it turns out that this fundamental assumption is mistaken. It is not the breakdown of their morality at all, but rather the working of their moral psychology. Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments.”

http://qz.com/566579/most-violence-in-the-world-is-motivated-by-personal-morality/

All Gene-Editing Research Should Proceed Cautiously, Scientists Conclude

December 8, 2015

“The official statement, which says work altering human germ lines should remain only in the lab, caps a three-day summit on using technology to alter the human genome”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/all-gene-editing-research-should-proceed-cautiously-scientists-conclude1/

And a second article on the subject

“Improving” Humans with Customized Genes Sparks Debate among Scientists”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/improving-humans-with-customized-genes-sparks-debate-among-scientists1/

‘Map: Exploring the World,’ ‘The Curious Map Book’ and More

December 7, 2015

“What is it about maps that we find so fascinating? Ever since the Babylonians scratched two parallel lines and a circle — representing the Euphrates River and their walled capital — on a clay tablet almost 3,000 years ago, we humans have been producing flat spatial imagery to locate our place in the world. Maps anchor us, give coherence to our environment, help make visual sense of otherwise intangible realities. The most skillfully done maps, moreover, can be thrilling to look at, elevating cartography into art.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/books/review/map-exploring-the-world-the-curious-map-book-and-more.html?smid=tw-nytbooks&smtyp=cur&_r=1&referer=https://t.co/CyIJpyNFrJ

 

Terror? Murder? As the Dead Mount, a Debate Persists

December 3, 2015

“Is it terrorism when a gunman sprays bullets in an elementary school or an African-American church or a Planned Parenthood clinic? What about at an office holiday party? Does an attack on a military recruitment center automatically qualify? What if a suspect is an American Muslim? Does he or she have ties to designated terrorist groups or are assumptions being made based on religion, even without firm evidence?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/terrorism-debate-san-bernardino-shooting.html

NAVIGATING BY FEEL: Polynesian Maps and Navigation

November 24, 2015

Polynesian Maps

“The Polynesians, scattered as they are over islands across the central and southern Pacific Ocean, are master navigators who tracked their way over a huge expanses of ocean without any of the complex mechanical aids we associate with sea navigation. They didn’t have the astrolabe or the sextant, the compass or the chronometer. They did however have aids of a sort, which though seemingly humble, were in fact the repositories of an extremely complex kind of knowledge. They are called Rebbelibs, Medos. and Mattangs.”

http://kurungabaa.net/2010/07/12/navigating-by-touch/

Below is a documentary about the Polynesians as well.

 

Is photographic memory real? If so, how does it work?

November 24, 2015

 

“As it turns out, however, the accuracy of many eidetic images is far from perfect. In fact, besides often being sketchy on some details, it is not unusual for eidetikers to alter visual details and even to invent some that were never in the original. This suggests that eidetic images are certainly not photographic in nature but instead are reconstructed from memory and can be influenced like other memories (both visual and nonvisual) by cognitive biases and expectations.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-such-a-thing-as/

New study shows that taste, like all reality, is but a fragile illusion

November 22, 2015

“You probably know that we perceive five basic tastes, and that taste has something to do with the tongue and the brain. But a new study shows just how weird our perception of reality truly is: Scientists showed that all it takes to convince a mouse that their mouth is full of sweet nectar or bitter poison is the manipulation of a few brain cells.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/11/18/new-study-shows-that-taste-like-all-reality-is-but-a-fragile-illusion/