Shared Knowledge TOK

TASK Shared knowledge comes to us ’second hand’ from other people Who should you trust?

Some dangers with shared knowledge (1) Authority worship Uncritically accepting something as true simply because an authority says it is true

TASK Can you point situations where you have fallen into authority worship? When, if ever, would you be willing to trust the authority of other people rather than the evidence or your senses?

Some dangers with shared knowledge (2) Groupthink Phenomenon in which members of a group suppress their own dissent in the interest of group consensus

TASK Watch the video found in the link below concerning conformity and groupthink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds3-ljxTRvo Where have you encountered conformity and groupthink?

Some dangers with shared knowledge (3) Power distortion Vested interest: an ulterior motive for claiming that something is true or false E.g. governments may alter data about the state of military operations or economy

TASK ’Julian Assange Defends leaking Government Secrets’ How can knowledge be abused by those in power?

Some dangers with shared knowledge (4) Fragmentation Focusing more on the parts and not understandign the whole

TASK Try find ways to fight against fragmentation of knowledge How can you have breadth of knowledge in addition to depth of knowledge?

Summary

Picture Sources https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140825135605-169269010-building-executive-trust-in-three-easy-steps http://www.radioinsights.com/2015/08/nielsen-cartman-moment-respect-my-authority.html http://webmasterformat.com/blog/build-authority-site http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/12/the-trouble-with-physics-another-branch-of-science-captured-by-groupthink/

Picture Sources http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jul/14/julian-assange-whistleblower-wikileaks http://hongkongreporting.com/2013/10/27/when-noble-ideals-collide/ http://blog.audiocodes.com/webrtc-connectivity-solution-with-focus-on-quality-and-scale/ http://www.sustainability.com/blog/what-s-the-big-idea#.VePuubSPftA

Picture Sources van de Lagemaat, Richard: Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma, Second edition, Cambridge University Press 2015, page 53