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

III. Methods and tools
the link to the whole article, “The
Follow
Natural Born Killers”.
Original
terms: Tenner Original
Search
born killers Nautilus
natural
crime committed almost one hundred
That
ago presents perennial TOK questions
years
reductionism, the nature of scientific
about
and the human interpretation of facts.
certainty
is easy for us to look back into history and
It
people for their naivete in believing the
mock
and flawed, scientific theories
avant-garde,
their time. The more interesting concern is
of
we are vulnerable to the same mistake.
whether
can we protect ourselves against it? Is
How
anything to suggest that we have learned
there
be wiser and more intellectuallyhumble?
to
article recounts how endocrinology “was
The
powerful among medical elites as
extremely
as the laity—it appeared to hold the keys to
well
health, vitality, and actions” (Tenner 2015).
human
killers’ defence was based on the idea that
The
behaviour was determined by defects in their
their
their brain was influenced by unusual
physiology:
of hormones, in this case. This was a
amounts
assumption, underpinned by beliefs
reductionist
nature can be broken down into smaller parts,
that
know now that human behaviour is
We
more complicated than hormones, but
much
approaches are still widespread.
reductionist
reductionism is certainly not
Scientific
in itself, but it is important to notice
problematic
reductionist approaches and arguments
when
used, and to consider when they are useful
are
when misused.
and
Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA,
Francis
the following in his book Astonishing
asserted
which focused on explaining
Hypothesis,
Perhaps he was being deliberately
consciousness.
and pro vocative in this statement;
rhetorical
exactly in his words rings untrue
what
considering reductionist analyses, it is
When
looking at how boundaries are formed
worth
the upper and lower levels of analysis. For
at
when considering human behaviour we
example,
at a spectrum of levels, from DNA to neurons
look
neurochemicals all the way up to psychology,
and
and economics. Investigating outside
sociology
this range is not useful. We can speculate that
of
the atoms and molecules that made
studying
the Chicago killers’ bodies will probably not
up
anything about their actions, whereas the
reveal
in their brains, and the potential
neurochemicals
of pharmacological compounds, might.
presence
awareness of the higher levels, from what
An
be called a zoomed-out perspective,
might
reveal important information—their
can
context, their family background,
socioeconomic
books they were reading and so on—that can
the
how we understand them. Clearly, some
inform
phenomena are emergent; that is,
behavioural
come from a higher, more zoomed-out level
they
the subject in question. A mob, for example,
than
affect the behaviour of an individual in ways
can
we might not be able to predict from studying
that
would we know if we have reduced
How
too far? It can be very revealing to
something
the reductionist approach, to a point. The
follow
is of following it too far down or in the
danger
context. One can lose sight of the forest
wrong
the trees. It may well be a human impulse to
in
things to their lowest level, all the way
simplify
to an elementary force, a grand “theory
down
everything”, a quantum mechanics, that has
of
captured the attention of modern science, or
so
a God, that has so captured humankind for
of
Even the phrase “to think deeply”
millennia.
something suggests diving into its more
about
constituent parts.
fundamental
taking reductionist approaches too far, one
By
losing sight of emergent phenomena.
risks
7
‘You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and
your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and
free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast
assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
(Crick 1995)
and those smaller parts can explain the whole.
only their brain.
orincomplete?
200