Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

constant, possibly forever. Follow this link
Planck
a story exploring the process and implications
to
replacing Le Grand K with a fascinating shiny
of
and an immutablevalue.
machine
terms: Vox world just
Search
the kilogram
redefined
ago Galileo proclaimed,
Centuries
can see through my telescope”,
“Anyone
not only that the observer is
suggesting
but also that churches
interchangeable,
monarchs no longer had the exclusive
and
to speak about nature. That process of
rights
continues today. Very soon we
democratization
no longer rely on the International Bureau
will
Weights and Measures, as anyone with a
of
balance will be able to tell the weight of
watt
III.2 we explored Elgin’s argument about
In
science, that certain complexities
experimental
be, and indeed must be, ignored. Often these
can
concern the relationship between
complexities
we think of as parts and wholes in science.
what
example, think about how the whole of the
For
body is constituted by various systems.
human
system is made up of various organs and
Each
which are in turn made up of cells,
tissues,
atoms and so on.
molecules,
an organism be separated from its
Can
and understood as a whole?
environment
biologists maintained this
Evolutionary
for decades, looking at genes
separation
the environment as two different sets of
and
However, more recent breakthroughs in
factors.
study of how the environment
epigenetics—the
the expression of genes—blurred the
affects
between these two domains. We are
boundaries
only beginning to understand the effects of
also
microbiome—the collective genetic material
the
all the micro-organisms that are resident in the
of
body, particularly in the large intestine,
human
which we have about as many as we have
of
cells. The complexity of relationships
human
organisms and their external and
between
attention, with important implications
growing
TOK. for
8 looks at the problem of separating
Chapter
organism from the environment. Here the
the
is: how far can we go simplifying and
question
complexity in the natural sciences?
reducing
extract below considers the limits of
The
branch of science concerned
endocrinology—the
students, Nathan Leopold, 19, and Richard
graduate
18, lured, abducted, and murdered Loeb’s
Loeb,
cousin Bobby Franks by clubbing and
14-year-old
The duo fancied themselves as master
asphyxiation.
beyond the law—they planned to play a
criminals
game with the victim’s family … and get away
ransom
murder. But the body was discovered before the
with
could be collected, and because Leopold lost
ransom
rare fashionable glasses at the crime scene, the
his
traced the two young men in no time.
police
Leopold and Loeb case … was unique in the
The
of 1920s violence. The widespread eugenic
annals
of the time was that crimes were committed
thinking
individuals of low hereditary intelligence.
by
poverty and urban tenements. In either case,
class
killed over money, territory, and credibility
criminals
Leopold and Loeb were dierent and their case
But
explosive consequences. It put the very idea of
had
will and responsibility on trial. People weren’t
free
blame for their crimes because they were at the
to
duo’s attorney, Clarence Darrow, knew the jury
The
accept an insanity defense. Not only did
wouldn’t
young men know right from wrong, they had
the
followed the wrong … . They freely
consciously
their careful planning to the police,
confessed
themselves as amoral criminal masterminds.
regarding
scandalously, they showed no remorse. … The
Most
Robert Crowe, was calling for the death
prosecutor,
So instead of claiming insanity, Darrow
penalty.
to a new medical specialty to justify his
appealed
deed: endocrinology, the science of glands
clients’
their secretions.
and
III. Methods and tools
III. Methods and tools
with hormones.
May of 1924, the city of Chicago was shocked by a
In
murder. Two precocious University of Chicago
brutal
akilogram.
III.5 Reductionism, emergence and
complexity
on the other hand, saw gangsters as
Reformers,
products of environmental factors like working
the
… . There was no clinical mystery to their behavior.
mercy of their individual biology. Science said so. …
(Tenner 2015)
internal environments has been receiving
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