The IB is meant to prepare students for the depth, rigor, and range of classes in university. In the american school system the first year or two of university, include a broad range of courses that all incoming students must take. Several of these classes are hard sciences. In this context, yes, science must be taught in IB for practical reasons. But what if universities did not require a working knowledge of science? I believe that if one does not wish to pursue a career involving science one should not be forced to study physics, chemistry, or biology. However, the hard sciences provide countless opportunities to improve problem solving skills. Whether it be high level mathematics or improving a lab, I believe science has much to teach us and should be suggested in high school course work.
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I’m new to IB here, but is not the whole goal of IB to make an intellectually well rounded citizen of the world? How can you be a well rounded student without having taken science? To me it just doesn’t really work out, and seeing the IBO’s policy on group 4 subjects, I would say they agree. Let’s face it, as teenagers in high school, we may think we know everything, but really, we don’t. We are all still in a developmental stage in our education. Many of us still do not know what career aspects we would like to pursue in college. So for this reason, the IBO has 6 separate subject groups aimed at allowing students the freedom to choose their subjects in each group. I like to see it as keeping your options open. You could go into IB convinced that you’re going to be a writer and that you don’t need to take science or math, but things change. Half way through your first year you could realize that you want to be a historian, or an engineer, and if you had had your way with your subjects originally, those doors would be closed for you. Many of us claim that we know what we want to do when we grow up, but things change, and the diversity in the IB curriculum allows that change to happen. Learning subjects like science is a vital part of our education, and high school is still too early to decide that you will never need to know about them in your future. At the moment each student in the IB is required to take a subject from Group 4, which is considered a science. Group 4 in our school includes sciences such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Design and Technology. I think that all IB students should at least take one science, because it will broaden their overall knowledge of the world. People that disagree with this may think that every person has their strengths and not necessarily need a science to succeed. In my opinion, sciences are used to educate a person. Learning a science should not be something that people don’t want to do, because learning a science is different than other subjects. For me, sciences are interesting because it’s learning about the world through a more accurate perspective. If in the future you don’t know what to do, taking a science might help you as you may end up doing something related to that science. Also nowadays, many careers are starting to require some sort of scientific education background for that course. If IB students don’t take a science, it’s their decision in which they know that taking a science will not benefit them. I think IB students should take a science (at least one) to benefit their learning. Science has become an important and necessary part since the first industrial revolution. Traditionally, physic, chemistry and biology are considered as science subjects. However, in the last 20 years, computer skills and design and technology (DT) are classified as science, as well. (although some people think they are not pure science)
In IB course or diploma, science is a compulsory subject to study, because it has connected to our lives so closely that we cannot live without the knowledge of science. We have to understand and be able to distinguish the truth in “society science”. For example, if you see organic food when you are shopping in the supermarket, you need to know the meaning of “organic”, is it really good for us or is it worth its expensive value? Since scientific theory becomes a tool of business sales, it’s necessary for us not to be misled by it. Just like vitamin, there’s always argument that whether we need extra nutrition. Another reasons that we need to study science because it is a good way to help us question. Why? I think science comes from questions, as if Newton didn’t question why apple would fall down, he may not find out gravity. Keeping doubts on everything and observations can move our brains to think and not be blind to follow others.
In my opinion, any IB student needs to study science, so that we can be suit in today’s society without be cheating and may be make achievement for human beings. I think an IB student should not take science as every student has their strengths on a particular thing. Forcing students to learn science do not help them but instead demotivate their mood on both study and achieving higher grades. For instance, in foreign counties, a student may have jump grades for his or her great talent in painting. This may seem as an extreme case but it proves that science has no uses to him or her. I think the real reason why IB wants students to take science is that we don’t question science that often simply most of us blind follow science. Most of us think science is in authority and the laws or theories cannot be replaced by ‘that is wrong’ .By encouraging students to take science may encourage students to question or dare science because they notice that laws or theories may not always work. However, this does mean that a student should take science just because the IB hopes to. I think students choosing what they are interest on help better not only in concentrating in class but also achieving better grades. In my view, IB stduents can choose take or bot take science lesson, this is because some people may not want to learn science in their future lifes. Of course, science can help us learn more about how the world works, open our mind to use different ways to think, get more understand the natural , human or society, help us to solve some problems in our lives. Science is very useful however some students may want to be a artist or musician , they just need to learn Art or music, some students may invest culture or language, then, they need to learn history or more languages, science is not really necessary to them. So, I think IB students have right to choose take or not. I think it should be as usually when you start in Year 12 you may not be 100% sure of what you want to study and what you want your career to be like and even if you do, you may change your mind and feel that it really wasn’t that great of a choice. The IB is supposed to prepare you in all aspects and if Science was to be taken out of the equation there would be quite a hole in the system. It’s true that if you know what you want to do, you would be able to focus on that more as science wouldn’t be taking up your time, but again, it’s common to change your mind and then if you don’t have science it may limit your options and halt you from trying different things. I believe that if a student wants to continue in the future with a science as a job then they should, however it should not be necessary. Sciences are to broaden your mind on the way you look at little thing and big things, it’s to give you an idea of how the world works and how you understand things, also to help you answer things. However it is up to others if they do not want to be doing a science as a job in the future, then there is no point in them doing it as an IB course since it goes into deeper content then needed and also it is harder to pass a course that you are not engaged in. So I believe that the answer is neither yes or no because it depends on the student. The TED Talk “Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science” by Richard Dawkins expresses the idea of how much people know about the world. It was very interesting. It made me think in new way. One of the subjects that drew my attention was that people have different molecules from the ones they had when tehy were children. So does that make people diffrent human beings by that? This statement can be claimed as true beacause people are composed of different molecules. Nevertheless, it can be claimed as invalid because mentality and humanity would be still the same as when they were young. It is very hard to say that people are same or not. I don’t think students should have to take science as a requirement of IB diploma as universities (in Britain anyway) unless you are wanting to do a degree in science they do not ask for science as a requirement, much like they do not ask for a high level of maths. The only subject that is a big requirement is English. In Scottish schools, the system is much more effective as students do not waste time doing science and maths unless that is something they want to pursue their career in. It is much better as people study the subjects that are actually going to help them with their career path. It is more about the individual and their needs rather than the IB’s look at things where it’s all about the IB course, where there is little room for change. I think it just seems silly to force people to take subjects they aren’t passionate about or good at for that matter. Steve Grand invites the reader to imagine a childhood experience, “something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time- weren’t you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there! Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that even took place” Dawking’s uses this example in his “queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science” speech. At first this really surprised me and I found it really interesting. Science has proven that every 7 years you have a completely different body, as not just the cells are replaced but atoms. If we take what Grand and Dawking’s have spoke about: memories, it is clear that these change over time too. Much like emotions during a difficult time, when something bad happens you are miserable and hate every second of it however as time progresses, pain lessens and you begin to see the positive outcomes from this experience. The question is what changed? Because it wasn’t the event that changed but something did. It’s similar to if you were to see a 2D photo of yourself, it’s lost a lot of aspects and features however you can still identify that it is you. I have never really think hard and take the languages very seriously, but after hearing the radio program in the last Tok class, it change my perspective about language on whole new level. The radio we listened in our last TOK class mentioned that when we’re talking, we don’t realize that we are actually singing. We make rhythm without we even aware about it. I remember that by just saying “somewhat they are strange” and just by repeat this phrase and you will be able to make song. In china, mandarin use different kind of tone for each word. For example if you said “ma” in flat tone, in chinese it means mother, however if you say it in higher tone then the word will means hemps. This is very different to english, whereas in english if you say “horse” whether you say it in flat, lower, or higher tone, the meaning will be the same. mandarin is very unique language, thank to different kind of tone for each word. Recently study has been shown that chinese people has the highest percentage of having perfect pitch compare to their western counterparts. it’s very staggering, but this is the reality. By having the perfect pitch, a person can identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference. Perfect pitch is considered as the rarest ability a person can has, although due different standards of testing, there are no accurate or reliable statistical studies of the phenomenon. It is sometimes said that, perfect pitch ability occurs only in as few as one in 10,000 persons in the general population. people that has perfect has the advantage over those who dont, especially when it comes to music. In conclusion, does language shape the way i think?. For me it’s yes indeed,personally language has changed my thinking to whole new level. But in my point of view, there are other thing that language can shape, i think language can change many things such as culture, policies, social life, health, relationship and many others.
http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2008 This is the link to barack obama’s campaign aid in 2008 with title ” Yes We can”. In this video, Barack Obama emphasis the feeling of unity and deliver clear message to everyone that together with him, America can be strong and better place to live for everyone. The entire lyrics in the video were originally cut from Obama’s concession speech in the New Hampshire presidential primary, the video was made without the involvement of Barack Obama campaign’s team. The video shot in a sparse black and white, faces and voices layered one on top of the other. it also features Obama’s image while he’s giving speech and it use variety of artist including musician, actors, and singers from across different gender and ethnic. Personally, the video really inspired me to change myself and I think the video is also intended for all of us especially youngsters. it gives you hope and sense of safety living in the united state. In the letter, the author claimed that the umbrellaology is a science. In my point of view, I strongly believe that this claim is true. First of all, for something to be considered as a science, it should have legitimate hypothesis, theory, and explanation. It also need to be investigated and experimented by following scientific procedure. The umbrellaology really does fits all of the criteria above. It has hypothesis, the author created numerous hypothesis in which he stated about size, number and characteristic of umbrellas he would find in each new block and houses. However his experiment doesn’t come with some flaws at all. For example, person can just happen to have black umbrella because the shop he bought from might only sell black umbrella, or the owner of the house might get the umbrella from someone else, you never know this. and what if there is another umbrella that the owner keep? again you never know this. Many people might disagree with me, they would probably say “why would we even consider umbrella as science? what is the benefit of umbrella? really umbrella!!! really!!! man it’s ridiculous, you’re lunatic man”. But hang on for a moment, isn’t science all about finding mysterious and investigate unknown thing? take for example, study of hugh buson particle, scientist have been trying to find out how the earth were created by studying the collision of hugh buson particle. the hypothesis for this experiment is that by studying the collision of hugh buson particle, it might also explain how the big bang occurred, and how the Earth was created. This study have been going on for almost ten years and have never shown any results up until now, and not to mention that it costs hundreds billion of dollar. And why would the study of hugh buson particle is considered as science even though, no evidence has been found so far to support any of the premises & hypothesis? It’s same for umbrellaology, we can’t judge umbrellaology as non-science just because there is no evidence to support any of the premises, hypothesis or proposed mechanism of action by which the color umbrella could related to people personality. In conclusion i think umbrellaology is science, and it might need some time before people can accept it as science, which in my opinion it will. In a previous class we watched a Ted talk hosted by Richard Dawkins. I enjoyed his lecture and thought it was intellectually fulfilling and very interesting. There were certain topics that Dawkins touched on in his Ted talk that particularly stood out to me more that the other topics. It was interesting to find out that solid objects such as a rock is mostly filled with empty space because of the molecule structure consisting of mainly empty space but we have evolved into perceiving these objects as a solid as we perceive it to be to fit out own practical needs. This of course makes very much sense to me. The general continuous attempts to walk through the wall because he was convinced the molecules within his body should be able to slide by the molecules within the wall. What i also found was interesting was the idea of showing kids videos and games that will expose them to the concept of objects being able to move through one another, to try to broaden these kid’s knowledge of the matter and to try to get them to understand and grasp the concept of this topic with greater ease than we do now. But if we have evolved to perceive solid objects in the way we do, would changing the way people perceive these things change the course of our evolutionary process. I have often talked about that it is time to start to take control of our evolutionary process, speeding up the process by selecting the best genes to reproduce, and with the technology that we possess today, i think it is possible, but changing the course of out evolutionary process has never occurred to me until now. This is think is an interesting thought. Another point that was mentioned in the Ted talk was that the molecules in our body are continuously changing. Thinking back to a early memory, knowing all the molecules in your body at the time have now been replaced. This is a scary thought. So the question that arises from this is what defines us as us? Personally i believe that our body doesn’t define us but instead it is our mind, and our body is basically just a outer shell that we control. I could go more deeply into this topic but i don’t think it is necessary. The TED talk ‘Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science’ was very interesting. I like the idea of ‘the middle world’ very much. I agree that what we are seeing is only a part of the world, or what we think the world is like. “Our brains have evolved to help us survive within the orders of magnitude of size and speed which our bodies operate at.” From when we were a baby, we learned the concept of ‘impenetrability’, we learn that our body will not go through a wall or rocks. We hear things everyday, from conversation, from music, however, how do we know that the sounds we hear are actually what they are? Different animals have different ways of seeing the world. The more I think about this, the more certain I am that the world is definitely what it seems to be, and it is ‘querer than we can suppose’. Many years ago, people thought that the sun surrounded the world, it wasn’t until later on that it is actually the world that is surrounding the sun. This examples show there is limitation of how we see things, because without any scientific equipments, whether the world is surrounded by the sun or the sun is surrounded by the world is exactly the same with our eyes. I also think that, this shows that there might be a larger world that we can ever imagine of. Maybe our world is just a small part of another bigger world, maybe it is just like an atom from that world. The ted talk “Queerer that we can suppose: the strangeness of science” that we watched is very interesting and made me think about a lot of things. The thing I found most interesting and “queer” was how we are not the stuff that we were made of before, but then we are still the same person mentally. This is very hard to take in and comprehend because I can’t really imagine it. I agree with that what we see of the world is “a model of the world, regulated and adjusted by sense data, but constructed so it’s useful for dealing with the real world.” because our concept of the world is based on our senses so it is completely different to the world through the senses of another organism with different sense from us. The important thing is that our perception of the world is useful for us to live and function in it. Therefore as Richard Dawkins says there are probably a lot of things in the universe that are “queerer than we can suppose” because there are things that we can’t even imagine in our “Middle World”. In February 1st, we look at Richard Dawkins’s talk about the world is queerer than we can suppose. Although the talk use high level of English which many I cannot get, but it interested because explain once we find out what knowledge, there is more to find out. For example, Richard Feynman, an eminent American physicist, did a study about quantum theory, assuming it is true, but he himself is even queerer about understand quantum theory. If this theory is true, this allows people do more studies about it in the future, making more questions on one thing, which make the world queerer. During last friday’s lesson we watched TED talk by Richard Dawkins (July 2005), he talks about life, the world in general and how much we know about it. He questions life and makes elementary probability theory. When Dawkins talks about drinking one glass of water and at least one molecule of the water had passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell, i find this quite interesting. At first this sounded quite ridiculous because I couldn’t get the connection between them but afterwards it all made sense. We have different molecules now from the ones we had when we were a child, so are we a different person? Since, we are composed of different molecules, no, because mentally we are still the same person we were and we remember what we did and felt. Although we have different molecules we are still who we are mentally. This talk was very interesting in that Dawkins talked about how very little we know about the world in which we live. Which is interesting, because humans as a race are curious, and always looking for the answer to things. You see this around you in everyday life, people reading the paper, friends catching up, and students learning in a classroom. So, with this level of commitment towards learning, you would assume that we would know pretty much all there is to know. And I’m sure most people make that assumption. I mean, they know the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, they know dogs bark and that if you eat too much in one sitting you won’t feel well. But how much do we really know? The answer is, close to nothing. The more we learn about the world in which we live, the more questions we have about it. This pursuit of knowledge intrigues me because all you’re really finding out, is that there is more stuff to find out. TED, which is an abbreviation of technology, entertainment and design, is a talk that professional people give their ideas to the general public. Actually, last time in TOK class was my first time knew this speech, but it really impressed me a lot.
The most interesting part in Richard Dawkins’ talk is that idea about “The nature of the model is governed by how it is used rather than by the sensory modality involved.” The orator mentions about the bat uses perceived hues (echoes) to know the texture of surface, while the human being can touch things to feel the texture. In our middle world, every specie uses its own way to understand the world and help them to live. On our sides, we feel strange to other species’ ways of living. We suppose ourselves as “normal”, but in the eyes’ of other species, our ways of living is also queer to them.
We feel queer about these things because we don’t understand about them, or it beyond the area we know. However, it doesn’t mean the universe has no possibility to exceed our understanding, actually, it really exceeds. Human’s brain is only used 10% of all, how can we know the rest of 90% is thinking about? Evolution is just one step of developing, next is quantum theory, and so on… What is it? I don’t know. Human uses billions of time to know and accept universe, but just very little about it. Knowledge has no end, nothing is queer. If we look at the bare criteria for something to be deemed scientific, then yes, the fictitious Umbrellaology is a legitimate science. The creator has gone through rigorous amounts of work to amass this information, and any person could replicate his experiments – if they genuinely wanted to – and receive the same results. However, as many people have already noted, his scientific “accomplishment” does not bring anything new to the table. One can quickly figure out that areas which experience heavier/frequent rains most likely have a greater concentration of umbrella owners through elementary deduction. Yes, women are probably more likely to own brightly colored umbrellas. What are you going to tell me next? People are more likely to get wetter if it’s raining heavily than if it’s just drizzling? I don’t care if you’ve stood outside with a pressure apparatus to measure the strength of the rain, and that you’ve averaged all of the rain strengths over a distance of a city to figure out what is truly “heavy rain”. Sure, I might not be able to state how strong the rain is to the nearest newton, but I have a general idea. Though Umbrellaology has tried and true theories, none of them are big contributions to science, or the world in general. This brings us to the concept of social value when gauging the validity of a science. I believe that what can be deemed a science not only decided through the bare-minimum principles, but also it’s worth to society. Ultimately, Umbrellaology would not be a science in any sane person’s mind, even moreso with actual scientists. It is but a parody, and would soil the sanctity of science. Science endeavors to test out hypotheses that are invariably interlinked with even bigger concepts than the one they are trying to tackle. Umbrellaology is far from this. It could perhaps be expanded to a social study when regarding umbrella colors, but otherwise it falls completely flat. Last Friday, we watched a video of a short lecture by Richard Dawkins. It was quite fast and talking about tricky ideas, so I could not understand the whole story. However, one idea sticked into my head and make me think about it again and again. It is about “Middle World” or “Middle Earth”. I had never thought about the idea before, and I was surprised when I heard about it. It was very interesting that small atoms from “Small World” are able to enter or go through objects from “Middle World” without changing anything. I makes sense because not anything is dense 100%, and it means there are some spaces for the atoms. Richard Dawkins also said that this “Middle World” mind limit our imagination. Maybe I can relate this idea to the mathematics. Last term, I watched videos about the idea of dimension in math class. In that video, it said, 2D can’t see 3D object if the 3D thing do not go through 2D place. So it means that we, as 3D shapes can not imagine how 4D stuff looks like. 4D is totally different world from 3D world. Is the knowledge gained certain, or merely probable? How valuable is the knowledge gained? Is the knowledge universal, or is it particular to a certain time, place, culture, etc.? Is the knowledge absolute or relative? my scientific experiment is a simple physic experiment. It is stretching a spring, an example of tension force. To begin the experiment, we set up a clamp stand and hang a holical spring on it. Then, we measure the length of the spring, with no added mass (unstretched). Next, we add 100g, to measure the new length. The next step is calculating extension, which is: extension=new length-unstrectched length. The experiment continues like this, adding another 100g and repeating up to 600g. The result is: When the mass (grams) is 0, 200, 300, 400, and 500, the length/cm we get is 8.2, 13.5, 16.0, 20.5, 24, and 27. Therefore, the extension/cm we get is 5.3, 7.8, 12.3, 17.8, and 18.8. Thus, the conclusion we get from this experiment is that the extension is propotional to load. I think this knowledge of extension is proportional to load is gained certain. Wherever we go, tension can be applied. This knowledge is very valuable, as it is clear cut that in our everyday life, we can see some examples of tension, like tug of war, a game all about two ropes are being pulled at both ends. At least on earth, the knowledge is universal, so I think the knowledge is absolute. Last Friday, we watched a speech called ” Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science” from Richard Dawkins. This speech was interesting, he said the science is more amazing than we can suppose. We are live a world called middle world, our body are fit and support us to live in this world, so, the fact that we observed and research were not really true, something we can’t find because it is too small that we can’t see it, like surface tension, it affect a insect a lot , but human can omit it, we can’t feel it ,if we don’t have any equipment and experiment, we can’t know there is a surface tension. so, If we want to find what is true, we need to investgate , and we call it science. So the science was more suprised than we imagined. Last Wednesday, we watched a Ted talk by Richard Dawkins (July 2005) called “Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science.” I thought it was interesting when it said, “We don’t live long enough.” It refers that people do not live long enough to handle improbable events (not likely to be true or to happen, unexpected), and that Evolution has not prepared us for that. That made me start thinking, that how can we really measure Evolution if we “don’t live long enough” to test it. People don’t handle improbable events well, because of society. I think evolution has nothing to do with how people “handle very improbable events.” Throughout time, people obviously behaved differently, so how do we know that people liked surprises in the past? Well we don’t. The “we don’t live long enough” is interesting, because how long is enough? Everyone has a different opinion to when the ideal years of life is. In the talk, Dawkins also mentions that dogs and rhinos are animals that rely on smell, instead of eyesight. Rhino’s have very poor eyesight and rely mainly on their hearing and smell. I did not know that! Dawkins also mentioned the phenomenon that bats rely on their hearing. It was an interesting way of putting how animals sense things that they haven’t come across differently. Many of the things we know, if not all of them are based on facts that science proves to be right every time.
Although the author uses the scientific method and claims that umbrellaology is a science, while using evidence that he had collected to support his ideas, I don’t believe that umbrellaology is a science. Anyone can use the scientific method to solve a daily problem and it does not necessarily make it science. The author collects a large amount of data, and while science is about experimenting and observing, they have to be able to be repeated and get the same results. However I don’t think if his experiment is repeated he would still get the same results because people could have already bought new umbrellas etc so his new data might be completely different from his previous data. Perhaps umbrellaology can belong to a science that is not natural science, like sociology because the author uses statistics to make predictions about the society. However it cannot be considered a science by itself. Although umbrellaology is probably not useful at all, some parts of science might also be useless to most people, but it helps us understand more about the structure of the world and how it functions. The author does not make explanations about his hypothesis or conclude with a theory that relates to this question. Therefore I don’t think it is a science. If it is a science, then people could just go around doing what the author did about any meaningless subject and claim it to be a science, then we would loose the point of science. I think that in some ways it umbrellaology could be consider a science as it does have the information and a certain amount of hard work and belief put into it however, it’s safe to say I don’t personally think it scientifically provides anyone any extra knowledge that was already not known. The argument about it distinguishing differences between male and female in color preference is very typical and could be done with anything. I don’t think it contributes in anyway. Also about people using umbrellas more in the rain is pretty much a given, you are hardly going to use one in the sun. I personally think the whole idea is a joke. According to the information in this article, I believe Umbrellaology to be a science. His laws and theories are based solely off data collected in a scientific manner. As he collected data he created and refined hypotheses to achieve a better understanding of his field. He continues to test his hypotheses and is spreading to new locations to prove his theories universal. The conclusions made in Umbrellaology are not fixed and are subject to change just as scientific theories. It is evident that Umbrellaology clearly follows the scientific method. Not only this, but the new science avoids facts based on faith, strives to test its laws universally in a methodical way, and can be proven false. Dear Sir: I apologize for my bluntness, but please, get a life. You say you search for truth but what truths have you really found? When performing scientific experiments you should be thinking of how your research will benefit the scientific community and society, as a whole. You should not however be wasting 18 years of your life on your own personal fantasy. Who does this study benefit other than yourself I ask you? Who’s going to read through your 9 volumes of Umbrellaology and say “Wow, this is good stuff.” The fact that you even asked me to take a look at your studies is an insult to my intelligence! I’d like to know this person whom you no longer call friend, perhaps we could share a coffee and talk about how ridiculous your theories are. But since you did ask, I will impart my general opinion onto whether or not I would consider this a science or not. And I must say, congratulations, based off of the information you have given me, it seems you have created a science based on the most pointless object ever however. Though I would like to know more for your collection of data, how did you travel to every single house hold within the United States, home to over 300 million people? Also, how were you able to anticipate people lying to you over the asininity of your research? What if people told you they had one umbrella, but they forgot about the three they had in their storage space. The margin of error here is just tremendous, it’s hard to believe you were able to draw any conclusions at all. Look honestly, I don’t even know how you got this address, but you mind as well come here to pick up your nine volumes of Umbrellaology because I shall not be reading them. They will be sitting in their box on the end of my drive way for whenever you decide to pick them up. Please do not write again, Dash This depends a lot on opinion. I think that it could be a science for sure! It’s not vague and no ad hoc exceptions, which is essential if it’s supposed to be considered a science. We can pretty much consider anything a science nowadays and if people are really interested and want to explore the world of umbrellas, then I don’t see why not. Let them. There is no harm in it and it could be interesting to see the results that people get out of it. I think people assume it’s not a science because it’s something that people don’t really care too much about and it’s just something that’s there and we think we know what there is to know about umbrellas, so how could it be a science? Isn’t science supposed to be things that are unknown and constantly changing? I think that’s what most people think. You can really make anything into a science if you are passionate and interested enough. I’m sure that there are hundreds if not thousands that claim that the video game ‘Halo’ is a science in itself. To most this is just a game and a fake universe, while many may take time to really fall into the world and research all the various parts of it and develop it in their unique way and I’m sure there are many questions that can be researched and looked further into in what would be known as ‘Halology’ and tons of people will argue that this is a real science. This is a very interesting article and although the writer tries really hard to make it seems like a science, I still believe that umbrellaology is definitely not a science. However it can be classified as ‘pseudo-science’. Which means that it does not follow the scientific method exactly, but has some characteristics of it. For example, it says that he tries to set out hypothesis and predictions about the colors of the umbrellas and the gender of the owner. However in my own opinion, these are all too vague. For example, It is very hard to classify the owner because the umbrella might be for all the people in the family. How would we classify the umbrella if it was a gift from someone else? Nowadays, there are more changes to fashion and styles as people are getting more open-minded. Males are wearing pink, and some certainly might use a pink umbrella. For something to be a science, the experiments must be repeatable. In this case, I do not think it is repeatable because as time and society develops, these hypothesis might not work anymore. In last TOK class, I read an article about Umbrellas Science. Well, the first thought in my mind is that how umbrella can also be a science? It sounds ridiculous. I will say it may be a pseudo-science, which means fake science, but not the real science like biology and chemistry. Although this person has a bunch of tests to prove his hypothesis, this scientific hypothesis is too vague (unclear) and doesn’t consider about some special conditions. For example, it says we can know people’s personalities by their umbrellas’ colors, but how do you know which umbrella belongs to a specific person in a family? How about the families share their umbrellas? My second question is that is there any exception in the test? Do we know if the umbrella was bought by the owner of someone else gave him? Also, we know that umbrellas is an economic good, people will change quickly when the prevalence changes. Moreover, sometimes, buying an umbrella may out of our plan because of the unpredicted weather. （most people just find a nearest shop to buy one ）Therefor, this umbrella is protected by various kinds of ad hoc exceptions. So, it is untestable. Overall, I just think this umbrella science falls short of being a science, but it is a good try to create a new science. However, his hypothesis needs to be improved, so the tests can probably prove the idea. It might really be a science in the future. ( just joking) As it is given in the letter, which is an extract from Sommerville, J. (1941) umbrellaology, or, methodology in Social Science. Philosophy of Science, 8, 557-566. The author explains how he has created a new science, umbrellaology. It is discussed in the letter, and in our Theory of Knowledge class if it is a real science or not. I would say that umbrellaology is a pseudo-science, since it is too vague and does not follow the scientific method, which is given to test if a scientific claim is a “real” scientific claim. Umbrellaology is where umbrellas are being tested in four areas, which are 1) the number of umbrellas possessed, 2) their size, 3) their weight, 4) their colour. This is the method the author collected the data to write his 9 volumes about umbrellaology. The author of the letter explains how he went forward with his scientific research of umbrellas. With the knowledge of how he carried out the data collection of umbrellaology, it is too broad and too vague to state it as a real science. To make a real scientific claim it has to go through the given criteria. The data collected of an area has to be updated every year to make umbrellaology become a real science. The method is explained, by having observed an organism and its behavior. From the observation a hypothesis is created. Before testing the hypothesis, it has to be narrowed to be testable and a testable hypothesis is called a prediction. After the creation of the prediction the experiment is carried out. If the result of the experiment is confirming the hypothesis, we have created a theory, but normally it takes a long time before a scientific theory is created. With this method we test claims, who claim they are scientific, if they are real sciences or pseudo-sciences. E.g. Feng Shui, Graphology, etc. Even though I do not approve of umbrellaology being a real science, I am still positive to practices such as Homeopathy and Acupuncture. This is, because I have been given homeopathy, since I was a little kid. However, these practices do not fulfill accepted criteria to be characterized as real sciences. Personally I think that scientific methods need to be criticized or broadened as several practices showing positive effects would still not satisfy scientific norms. For me I know and have tested Homeopathy and Acupuncture with very good results. I believe more people could be helped if these methods would have been accepted or trusted, but this is sadly not the case, as the scientific criteria often are defined by classic medical scientists (given by doctors). I personally think umbrellalogy is a science. The study of umbrella may be rare to do but it follows the scientific research by having an observation, hypothesis, prediction and testing. I think it is like case study in psychology, which people analysis on the work, he or she had done. If in psychology we call case studies science why not umbreallalogy? Although study of umbrella might seem pointless, and the results may vary due to different cultural background, age, timeline etc. but it still gives detailed analysis on the research instead of giving a vague explanation. I believe one can have no doubt umbrellalogy is a scientific research after my explanation. In the letter, the author’s assertion is that his theory, Umbrellaology, is science. I, personally, think that Umbrellaology is a pseudo-science which mean fake science, not a science since it has no scientific claim. To begin with, Umbrellaology went through the scientific method which is 1) observation, 2) hypothesis, 3) prediction, 4) test, 5) a new hypothesis and 6) theory. For every survey, he firstly made hypothesis in regard to his subsequent observation. Then he tested and got a new hypothesis and theories related to umbrella. These stages are proper scientific method and because he went through the process, it can be included as science. However it does not include any scientific claim, so it can be included as a pseudo-science as it does not need to include any scientific contention. In addition, his experiment is really detailed, not vague. One of the most important things about science is that a theory should not be vague prediction. The author researched the number if umbrella possessed, their size, their weight and their color. Also, this research was not restricted in a certain area. He did his survey in lots of places. Therefore he got a general and detail information about umbrella. So I think Umbrellaology has really detailed information and not vague and can be counted as pseudo-science. I am really confused about what is science, because according to a theory, experiments which went through the scientific method can be science. Like this example, Umbrellaology does not look like a science at all as it has no relationship with science that we used to know, but it can be counted as science (pseudo-science). Then science can include almost everything. I read a letter about ‘umbrellaolgy’. It was quite interesting because author used a lot of things to explain this ‘umbrellaology’ and it seems quite make sense. however, I don’t think this is science. First of all, author used factors such as size, colour and these factor is so ambiguous. science is always based on clear and obvious factors. Scientist use these factors to make their evidence of hypothesis. However, the evidence of this ‘umbrellaology’ is not clear and definite. Size and colour can change easily by users personal perference. We can’t just say “you are psychopath because you are wear in red.” scientific factor should base on objective evidince. Secondly, this ‘umbrellaology’ will never help or develope our life. It is useless. What can we get from this theory? The life style based on umbrella? How can we choose better umbrella for better life? i don’t think it can make our life better. Umbrella is just a umbrella, nothing more than that. In the letter, author said he created a new science called Umbrellaology, he researched lots of information and summarize some law about umbrella. I don’t think umbrellaology is a science. Firstly , investigate umbrella is not helpful for our life, science can help us learn more about the world, physical can help us understand the phenomenon in universe, chemical can help us learn more about medicine, biology can help us understand the life in the earth. How about Umbrellaology, it can’t help us to understanding our life, it just a umbrella, what we can get from umbrella, nothing! Secondly, the author do a research about umbrella, he find most male use dark colour umbrella, and most female use bright colour umbrella, then , he summarize the law between umbrella and sex. This is not science law, science law must be absolutely , the research that autor done is not absolute, just represent most of people, not all of people, so, I think Umbrellaology is not science.
In this letter, the writer created the new theory called Umbrellaology and that it is a science. The rule of science is that the activity has to be practical activity which can be observed and investigated. Umbrellaology follows the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment and observation. For example, the writer states that umbrellas owned by women tend to great variety of colour, whereas those owned by men are almost always black . Thus, I believe that Umbrellaology is also a science. In this letter the author states that “Umbrellaology” is a science. While others may disagree, I agree with the author. Umbrellaology may be unheard of and rare, but to classify as a science it must follow the Scientific Method and be distinguished from a pseudo-science. I think that by the Scientific rules, Umbrellaology does technically classify as a science. The Scientific Method claims that you must have an observation, followed by a hypothesis (creating a theory), followed by a prediction and leading to the test, where that can lead back to a new hypothesis or more observations. In this letter, the author makes observations. These observations include the umbrellas and the places the author will be testing on. Then comes the hypothesis. In the letter is says that there are multiple hypotheses, where they regard the number and characteristics of the umbrellas that would be found there. “Umbrellas owned by women tend to great variety of colour, whereas those owned by men are almost always black” is one of the many predictions for this science. The author then carried out the next step of the Scientific Method, the test. The author carried out this test efficiently by going block by block, house by house, etc. The whole test was carried over the entire of New York City. For a science to be true, it can not be vague or have ad hoc exceptions. Umbrellaology is not vague at all, because the author mentions that 1) the number of umbrellas possessed, 2) their size, 3) their weight, and 4) their colour, are covered. That covers many of the umbrellas’ features. In another prediction it says “The interrelationship assumes the form, in the first law, of almost direct ratio to annual income, and in the end, of almost inverse ratio to annual income.” The predictions that are made are very precise. Umbrellaology is general in nature, where it does not have to be making exceptions (that we know of according to the letter). What we read of Umbrellaology is just a page of a letter. By reading the nine volumes the author says have been written, we may find out that Umbrellaology is really not a science, but only a pseudo-science. Umbrellaology is a science. In order for something to be classified a science, it must follow the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment, observation and theory. Umbrellaology does in fact follow these methods.One this i found interesting was that the letter states the authors results and theories of different sexes owning different colour umbrellas. I don’t think that the theory of different sexes being limited to different coloured umbrellas based off gender can be considered a law. This is also because the world is constantly changing and the role of the male is becoming more flexible therefore meaning that fashion taste for males is becoming more diverse and in many cases more feminine. But the fact remains that Umbrellaology follow the scientific methods, and no matter how ridiculous it is, It would and should be legitimately considered a science. Umbrellaology is not a science, it is a pseudo-science meaning that it claims the status of science while lacking its substance. Science is the intellectual and practical activity which can be observed and experimented. It also follows the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment, observation and theory. However, Umbrellaology can follow those methods does not mean that it’s a science. Since, in the letter it doesn’t state the authors hypothesis, it only states the authors results and leading to theories and law where women tend to own umbrellas with variety of colour whereas those owned by men are all black. Personally, I don’t think that this is a ‘science’ or could that be counted as the law of colour variation relative to ownership by Sex. Since, this doesn’t certify anything useful. Also, as the population is growing the fashion taste is expanding and changing so nowadays men are seen more with coloured things not like in the past. Therefore, this law wont be able to work as the culture, society and taste of consumers change. Thus i disagree with the author, meaning Umbrellaology is not a science.
As author mentioned through the letter, he(maybe she) has numerous research results and hard facts as 9 volumes of books. Despite his huge amount of investigation, I disagree with the author’s argument. Firstly, he said that he ascertained information of 1)how many umbrellas people have, 2)size, 3) weight, 4)color of them. They are just too vague and ambiguous. You can apply them to any other objects such as backpack, shoes or wallet. He asked why not umbrella, but I want to ask him why umbrella? I am pretty sure if the subject is changed to other thing which is one of object that I mentioned above, the results will come out similarly as the author had. Maybe it is from stereotype, but people generally think that women have colorful stuff and men have achromatic colors goods. Thus I think his investigation just prove the stereotype is really correct, and this can not be defined by the law color variation relative to ownership by sex. Also it is obvious that high income people have more umbrellas because they earn more. In addition, the result is flexible to the location, culture and other things. For example, in desert, even people are rich, they would have no or only one or two umbrellas because it is hardly rainy due to climate reasons. I personally believe that Umbrellaology is a pseudo-science which is a “fake” science. I believe that the information given is too general and vague. The author has not considered the difficulty of getting every persons information about their umbrellas, people may have moved, not been home, thrown away their umbrellas and may not know where their umbrellas are ect… There is a non stop process of getting information and will never reach the end of it because people are born or grow up and people buy more umbrellas, the result with never be exact. “to seek and discover the truth is enough for me” the author does not have a clear conclusion , evaluation or prediction/ hypothesis. Also he is testing for nothing, and could not benefit us in any way, therefore it is all a made up science because you can’t predict anything about and it is random. Umbrellaology is not there to prove anything unlike real science where it is constantly trying to find an answer like why apples turn brown after being exposed to oxygen for awhile which is because of enzymes reacting. Science tries to answer things that can’t be explain where Umbrellaology as nothing to explain. |
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