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

about ourability to generalize results about
is
to humans. Consider this critique from
rats
that what we are aiming for is not a
Assuming
free of addicted rats, but rather a world free
world
addicted people. Our environment, unlike the
of
created for the rats in Rat Heaven is far
environment
stress free. Worse still, as far as I can tell, we
from
for the foreseeable future, be unable to create
will,
a Utopia for most people on earth. If this is so,
such
is little doubt that some of the people aected
there
negative circumstances, traumatic experiences,
by
biological disturbances will be led down the path
or
struggles with drugs and such … I am fully
towards
board with making sure that the treatment system
on
use does not exacerbate the problems that stress
we
trauma bring about, but I think that the picture
and
TED talk and the related book presents is far too
this
to be as helpful as we want it to be.
simplied
our exploration of the dangers of
Recall
earlier in the chapter. Is it
simplification
that the rat park story has been
conceivable
uncritically for the following reasons?
received
It successfully cast doubt on previously
•
(and flawed) dogma.
accepted
back to II.1 and the 1971 Stanford Prison
Think
which seems to have resonated
experiment,
the cultural climate at the time. In
with
one simplification have we embraced
debunking
discarding evidence such as heritable
another,
factors for addiction, or the histories of
risk
communities devastated by alcohol
Indigenous
by early settlers?
brought
already popular TED talk on addiction
Hari’s
animated by Kurzgesagt, an educational
was
channel with close to 9 million
YouTube
Kurzgesagt videos are meant to
subscribers.
factual overviews of anything from
deliver
to vaccines, to the European Union.
loneliness,
video “Addiction” is the most
Kurzgesagt’s
to date, even though Kurzgesagt has
watched
it from the channel. Removing it was
removed
by viewers’ criticism, and the self-
motivated
of having simplified a topic to the
realization
of misrepresentation. Taking seriously the
point
of having misinformed 18 million
possibility
on a serious issue, Kurzgesagt published
viewers
follow-up video, explaining the responsibilities
a
communicating scientific research to a
of
audience on the internet. Animated in
general
channel’s signature style, “Can You Trust
the
videos?” promises an update
Kurzgesagt
explainer on addiction … but only once
video
terms: trust Kurzgesagt videos?
Search
YouTube
refers to the closeness of the
Reproducibility
when a study is repeated using the same
results
replicability refers to the extent that
methodology;
researchers can achieve the same
independent
similar results under different
or
and methodological
experimental
Both are considered
conditions.
be cornerstones of the scientific
to
as results that are not reproducible and
method,
can be considered suspect. Over the
replicable
decade, a growing body of literature has
last
that many research findings in the
suggested
sciences, particularly in psychology, are
human
replicable, leading to claims of an academic
not
recent years, it has become painfully clear that
In
is facing a “reproducibility crisis,” in
psychology
even famous, long-established phenomena—
which
stu of textbooks and TED Talks—might not
the
real. There’s social priming, where subliminal
be
can inuence our behavior. And ego
exposures
the idea that we have a limited supply
depletion,
willpower that can be exhausted. And the facial-
of
hypothesis, which simply says that smiling
feedback
us feel happier.
makes
by one, researchers have tried to repeat the
One
experiments behind these well-known
classic
failed. And whenever psychologists
eects—and
large projects, like Many Labs 2, in which
undertake
replicate past experiments en masse, they
they
succeed, on average, half of the time.
typically
III. Methods and tools
III. Methods and tools
psychologist Adi Jaffe.
Kurzgesagt is confident about its research.
III.6 Replicability and reproducibility
(Jae, 2015)
• There was a desire to reject that dogma.
crisis.
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