Posted in Ethics, Media on Jun 16th, 2009 No Comments »
Look at Picture #6, of a little boy in a Palestinian refugee camp. Heartbreaking if you ask me. It’s also a perfect example of how we see things through a particular lens – such as the lens of the environment we are brought up in (one would just wish that a little child like that [...]
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Natural Sciences on Jun 2nd, 2009 No Comments »
Some more articles you might enjoy (or find interesting, depending on the topic):
Scientific Research into Humour. Somewhat related is this article, which considers the scientific nature of blushing.
Remember that ludicrous Facebook Quiz “Are you a potato?”? Seems like Proctor & Gamble should have taken that quiz: Pringles Are Potato Chips.
Not so light-hearted, on the other [...]
Posted in Ethics, Natural Sciences on May 12th, 2009 No Comments »
Is My Marriage Gay? (a rather amusing piece about ridiculous laws)
Patenting Genes (a rather disturbing piece about gene monopolies)
Posted in Ethics, Human Sciences, Media, Technology on Apr 25th, 2009 No Comments »
Here are a couple of articles I have come across in the past few days, that I thought you might find interesting:
Yes, Looks Do Matter: A social-scientific take on Susan Boyle. (If you missed all the brouhaha about Susan Boyle, check out this video.)
Twilight: The Hidden Market
I have been sort of avoiding Twilight, but this [...]
Posted in Ethics, Human Sciences, Language on Apr 17th, 2009 No Comments »
On the annual “Day of Silence” (of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network), NYT columnist Judith Warner provides an article, Dude, You’ve Got Problems, on bullying and name-calling involving words such as “gay”, “fag” or “queer”. It’s an interesting read, as is the profusion of comments that follow – Warner clearly touched on a contentious [...]
Posted in Ethics, Natural Sciences on Mar 25th, 2009 No Comments »
Cloning Pets
Human cloning: Laws
Posted in Ethics, Sense Perception on Mar 17th, 2009 No Comments »
Religious Belief and End-of-Life-Treatment Choices: New Study Findings
Have the Eyes Had It?: How reliable are eye-witness reports?
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Technology on Mar 11th, 2009 2 Comments »
A number of articles you mind find interesting:
Since we have been talking about belief and superstition in relation to the “Darwin’s God” article, this piece on Elf Detection 101 struck me as rather intriguing.
I also came across “Tag, You’re It“, which reminded me of the G-Block presentation on “The Human Circus”.
And finally, a piece that is [...]
Posted in Ethics, Language, Natural Sciences on Mar 9th, 2009 No Comments »
Today, Obama lifted the ban on stem cell research – a highly contentious issue:
The Stem Cell War
There is also The IVF Battlefield.
Still involving children (though not in their embryonic form) and somewhat less controversial, there is also the heated discussion on whether forward phasing strollers might impede a child’s language learning. Yes, I know, that’s [...]
Posted in Ethics, Human Sciences, Natural Sciences on Mar 4th, 2009 1 Comment »
Some more articles you might find interesting to peruse:
In a Helpless Baby, the Roots to our Social Glue: Here’s an article for those of you who take IB Anthropology.
Ethics Quandary at Harvard Medical School: Should universities receive funding from pharmaceutical companies?
Posted in Ethics, Language, Natural Sciences on Mar 4th, 2009 No Comments »
Restricting IVF
Abortion? Don’t Mention It
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Language, Natural Sciences on Feb 28th, 2009 2 Comments »
Reading recommendations:
Slate asks Who should pay for in vitro fertilization?, a question that has arisen as part of the recent octuplets controversy. Also related to some of the presentation topics (e.g. “Synthetic Biology”) we have seen in class is another Slate article, which considers the the bad uses of good technology.
I would also like to recommend [...]
Posted in Ethics, Media on Feb 26th, 2009 No Comments »
Recently I posted on the issue of fallen soldiers’ coffins being depicted in the media, something which was prohibited. The ban has now been uplifted, although it is up to families to choose whether they want the images of the coffin to be made public.
Posted in Ethics, Media, Uncategorized on Feb 19th, 2009 No Comments »
The media has changed tremendously in the past five to ten years, and more changes are surely still ahead of us. You are all of course familiar with Youtube which was created in 2005 and probably watched some of the video highlights of the most recent US Presidential elections – some of which helped garner votes, [...]
Posted in Ethics on Feb 18th, 2009 Enter your password to view comments
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Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Media, Natural Sciences on Feb 16th, 2009 3 Comments »
A Modern-Day Gattaca: “A Baby, Please. Freckles, Blond, Hold the Colic”
Fallen Soldiers, Coming Home in Public:…From our discussion in F-period today, a real-life example of a current discussion on how certain images – or the lack thereof – in media outlets can shape our views.
Plastic Surgery Confidential
Textual Misconduct: What to do about teens and their [...]
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Human Sciences on Feb 9th, 2009 No Comments »
Lisa Belkins raises the question“How many children is too many?” on her blog, providing a link to a first interview with the mother, Nadya Suleman. The blog entry itself was posted only a couple of hours ago, but the comments from readers are multiplying by the minute, which seems to suggest how strongly the public [...]
Posted in Ethics, Natural Sciences on Jan 31st, 2009 1 Comment »
A story that has had the world abuzz for the past few days is that of a 33-year old American woman giving birth to octuplets (yes, octuplets!). From the scientific point of view this is rather unique. At the moment all eight babies are alive and apparently doing well, and may go on to become [...]
Posted in Ethics, Natural Sciences on Jan 22nd, 2009 No Comments »
Some articles I read over the vacations that I wanted to share:
Creature Comforts – Service Animals
Motherhood at 70
Leave this Child Behind: Sports, Segregation and Environmental Eugencis
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Natural Sciences on Dec 30th, 2008 No Comments »
I don´t think I yet posted this article, which has been up on Slate for some ten days.
And since you probably weren´t paying much attention to such issues in your pre-ToK time, here are some more articles:
First Face Transplant Carried Out in France (November 2005) – also check the links to articles on the top [...]
Posted in Ethics, Natural Sciences, Technology on Dec 16th, 2008 2 Comments »
I found this article rather worth reading today, as it raised some very challenging questions – that, according to the writer – we haven’t even yet started thinking about.
Posted in Ethics, Language, Politics on Dec 14th, 2008 No Comments »
I found it, finally…
The question is “Is it a crime or just politics?”. Of course, the issue is more than just a matter of language (in fact, that might be the more indirect question here). The “Where is the line drawn” is a of course a perfectly ToKish concern…
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Natural Sciences, Psychology on Dec 4th, 2008 No Comments »
I thought I should find you some more articles that might inspire one or the other journal entry and hopped over to Slate, which is always a good place to find something ToKish. A new article, entitled
Obama in Your Heart, yet again discusses emotion. A few days ago, I also came across a discussion on [...]
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Religion, Science, Uncategorized on Nov 26th, 2008 No Comments »
California’s Proposition 8
Posted in Emotion, Ethics, Language, Natural Sciences, Reason on Nov 12th, 2008 2 Comments »
When discussing inductive reasoning in the natural sciences in F-period today, I mentioned an experiment I had read about the other day on certain types of sea sponges that conduct light to their interior. Interestingly, the article even mentions that the experiment was based on previous observations.
I also happened to stumble across another article with [...]
