TOK Topics

A Theory of Knowledge Site

Category: Knowledge and the Knower

The Man Who Studies Ignorance

March 6, 2016

“A new era of ignorance

““We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise,” says Proctor. Even though knowledge is ‘accessible’, it does not mean it is accessed, he warns.

““Although for most things this is trivial – like, for example, the boiling point of mercury – but for bigger questions of political and philosophical import, the knowledge people have often comes from faith or tradition, or propaganda, more than anywhere else.”

“Proctor found that ignorance spreads when firstly, many people do not understand a concept or fact and secondly, when special interest groups – like a commercial firm or a political group – then work hard to create confusion about an issue. In the case of ignorance about tobacco and climate change, a scientifically illiterate society will probably be more susceptible to the tactics used by those wishing to confuse and cloud the truth.”

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance?mc_cid=c28053bf7b&mc_eid=34e2887073

Believing What You Don’t Believe

November 7, 2015

“t’s not that people don’t understand that it’s scientifically impossible for their lucky hats to help their team hit a home run or turn a double play — all but the most superstitious would acknowledge that. It’s that they have a powerful intuition and, despite its utter implausibility, they just can’t shake it.”

What is wrong with the way we think?

October 19, 2015

“A Q&A with social psychologist Richard Nisbett, who researches the processes of reasoning and decision-making.”

Today, the notion of “smart-thinking” is ubiquitous. This huge publishing field was prefigured by the work of social psychologist Richard Nisbett who in 1977 published an empirically researched article that showed that many of our choices and preferences are influenced by factors outside our conscious awareness. This was ground-breaking and it became one of the most cited articles of the decade. Nisbett, who is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition programme at the University of Michigan, has published numerous books over his long career. The latest is Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking. Here, he discusses some of his ideas.

https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4923/what-is-wrong-with-the-way-we-think?mc_cid=af192e18ce&mc_eid=34e2887073

What is wrong with the way we think? A Q&A with social psychologist Richard Nisbett, who researches the processes of reasoning and decision-making.

September 23, 2015

“Today, the notion of ‘smart-thinking’ is ubiquitous. This huge publishing field was prefigured by the work of social psychologist Richard Nisbett who in 1977 published an empirically researched article that showed that many of our choices and preferences are influenced by factors outside our conscious awareness. This was ground-breaking and it became one of the most cited articles of the decade. Nisbett, who is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition programme at the University of Michigan, has published numerous books over his long career. The latest isMindware: Tools for Smart Thinking. Here, he discusses some of his ideas.”

https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4923/what-is-wrong-with-the-way-we-think?hash=e2b2da42-609c-4954-a751-23d86f8341ae

Even Taylor Swift’s Mom Got That ‘Blank Space’ Lyric Wrong — Here’s Why

May 27, 2015

“There’s actually a science behind all your mis-perceived song lyrics — it’s a phenomenon called mondegreens and it happens all the time.

“Some Swift fans think the song’s line ‘got a long list of ex-lovers’ is actually ‘all the lonely Starbucks lovers’ including, apparently, her mom.”

https://www.yahoo.com/health/even-taylor-swifts-mom-got-that-blank-119948277022.html

Witness Accounts in Midtown Hammer Attack Show the Power of False Memory

May 18, 2015

“The real world of our memory is made of bits of true facts, surrounded by holes that we Spackle over with guesses and beliefs and crowd-sourced rumors. On the dot of 10 on Wednesday morning, Anthony O’Grady, 26, stood in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. He heard a ruckus, some shouts, then saw a police officer chase a man into the street and shoot him down in the middle of the avenue.

“There is no evidence that the mistaken accounts of either person were malicious or intentionally false. Studies of memories of traumatic events consistently show how common it is for errors to creep into confidently recalled accounts, according to cognitive psychologists.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/nyregion/witness-accounts-in-midtown-hammer-attack-show-the-power-of-false-memory.html?_r=0

You and I Change Our Minds. Politicians ‘Evolve.’

March 15, 2015

“As a general rule, it is difficult for people in public life to change their minds. There is an immediate rush to portray politicians as ‘flip-floppers’ when they shift position on anything, even if they do so following a careful consideration of an issue rather than a meeting with a pollster. The hecklers will reliably accuse them of lacking the ‘courage of their convictions,’ of being ‘typical politicians,’ even though the typical politician actually tries to change his mind as rarely as possible, to avoid the hecklers.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/magazine/you-and-i-change-our-minds-politicians-evolve.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below

Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts

March 15, 2015

“What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised?

“I was. As a philosopher, I already knew that many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts. While there are no national surveys quantifying this phenomenon, philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshmen in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/

THE ORWELLIAN RE-BRANDING OF “MASS SURVEILLANCE” AS MERELY “BULK COLLECTION”

March 15, 2015

“Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled ‘torture’ with the Orwellian euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand ‘mass surveillance’ as ‘bulk collection’ in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal). In the past several weeks, this is the clearly coordinated theme that has arisen in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand as the last defense against the Snowden revelations, as those governments seek to further enhance their surveillance and detention powers under the guise of terrorism.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/13/orwellian-re-branding-mass-surveillance-merely-bulk-collection/