Wednesday, April 20, 2016
TOK Question of the Week: To what extent can science be a reliable source of knowledge when trying to assess the impact of controversial topics like GMOs?
In our class we discussed the GMOs and the possible negative impact on humans and nature. This is a controversial topic, and we had a great discussion about the scientific evidence or lack thereof. Moreover, we recognized that there are other Areas of Knowledge that we can add to our discussion and many Ways of Knowing. The Areas are Science, Ethics, and History. The Ways are Emotion, Imagination, Reason, and Intuition. So first think about the first Area of Knowledge: Science. How reliable is it? As we discussed the scientific evidence in this case is not at all very convincing. There seems to be scientific evidence for both sides. What about History? History tells us a lot about humanity, and one thing it tells us is that humans have been messing around with nature for a very long time. Are GMOs any different? Besides, we have a history of agriculture and food production that also may not be so "good" for nature. What about Ethics? Should we be messing around with nature at all? Start to combine the Areas of Knowledge with the Ways of Knowing and begin writing a response. Have fun and start mashing them up.
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I think science is a reliable source in many topics. We can learn lots of new information and prove our ideas with science. But in some ot the topics like GMOs ı think science can't help us. Everyone wants to know are GMOs healthy o r unhealthy. Lots of people working about thiss issue but no one can find a real result. I think we should look at history. We may ask it to older generations or look at some books aboutthis issue. Maybe history can help us. Emotions and imagination also can't help us in this topic because these are subjective things. We need to find objective and logical reasons and informarion in these kind of topics
ReplyDelete20. 04. 2016
ReplyDeleteI am going to start it by saying that science isn’t reliable because they change their mind everytime. It’s like they are giving us some information which helpful sometimes but they chage their mind as time passes. So they are controling us in a way. I wanted to talk about history now. We don’t know what happened in the past but we can know what happened by asking who we trust in our lifes: our mothers or grandmothers… They lived trough that past years and they experienced those years so they know better than the internet. And if you ask them, they don’t understand, they can’t believe what they saw when they go to a grocery store. Vegetables are bigger than what they sposed to be. Fruits are in a weird shape… And it made think: ‘what is going on?, what scients did to do this? I think when we look back, when we compare the old times and now we can clearly see that there are some differences and what we should do right now is I think we should do what our grandmothers used to do. When you look at them, when you look at the vegetables there are difference so history is the right thing. We should trust the ‘History’. But what about the ethichs? I think ethics are… I think we should trust one regions ethics and we should not. Because when I look at some regions in Turkey like the places which are not devoped yet, have some good ethics. Like they used to plant their own things and they do these kinds of jobs by theirselfs. And let me tell you that’s actually healthier. But in other regions like the regions which are devoloped (crowded cities) they would (farmers) prefer using GMO. Because with gmo, the food will grow faster so that it can hold up to the crowd. And what I find interesting is in bigger cities there are more GMO foods than smaller cities which are not that devoleped. And what makes us believe that Gmos’s are good? I think scientits used ways which ar shown and I think they used that ways to make us belive that GMO’s are good. I still think Gmo is a bad thing and scientits are treating us how they wanted to, I think…
Nothing can be more reliable than science. We have to trust to it no matter what because it's certain that the truth is hiding in it. Scientist couldn't find an answer about GMOs yet but people should be aware that it will find it out soon. How? You may ask me. Well, with high level professors and experiments on GMOs there's no way that they can't find it. Also our ancestors believed in science so much and they even figured out if those facts are accurate by making experiments. So why would I not trust it? As I said before, science is the most reliable thing.
ReplyDeleteI would like to start with the definition of science. Science means observing the nature. And we know everything through trying, making experiments. And as always major results of the experiments will be designated to be facts, these facts could change also, while the major results are changing. Because the only thing that doesn’t change is change. So I think science is reliable sometimes but as I tried to mention in some cases it can’t be a resource to find out the truth like in GMO case. But how and why? Today scientist say that GMO’s are make cancer cells bigger and affect negatively many diseases but what about tomorrow, is the fact will be the same? Even now there are other results that says GMO’s are good but if it is good then why some other people say that it is bad for our health. I think this contrast comes from people just like GMO’s come from people who created it. I think that maybe we are changing too. It would be ridiculous to think not to change when we are playing with nature and changing many things around us. And we will change as the time passes and maybe some people can adapt some kind of GMO’s and then they can say that GMO’s are good. But just as I said in the hot seat; think about 2 hundred years ago does the nature needed bigger tomatoes or killing some kind of insects or cutting down the trees for higher, more magnificent buildings . Of course not. We play with nature like it is our toy . But if we play too much then it can be broken like all the toys. We should stop messing up with the nature or we will have to face with the consequences like natural diseases.(earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, erosions…) Also there are a great history behind us which tells stop playing with it. Look to the places that we mess up through cutting down the tree, dumping the garbage; look to the life in there and the life in some natural park. You will eventually understand that we shouldn’t mess up with nature and we shouldn’t give up from the science which means observing the nature, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI think that sometimes science can tell us the wrong but usually science is the most true way to explain our world and stuff. Obviously, if we could be more honest with our selfs we wouldn't believe science. For example, when the scientists say us something we usually believe it without thinking it.If we look it from a different point of view we have to believe them to live in a simple way, we can't prove everything by our selfs. About GMO's ,everyone knows that they are harmful for us but do they know how organic foods are made? No. While the organic foodsa are growing in farms the farmers use some medicines to protect their food from insectes. As you can see they are both unhealty but which one is the better?I think that we should wait thos answer from the professors that working with this stuff.
ReplyDeleteFrom the past 150 years there is a lot of country which lives with extreme poverty. Some of the people cant even buy a single food to full their belly. It is obvious to anyone that humans need foods. There is no excuse about that we have to eat. Later on extreme poverty became a global issue. Scientists found a brand new way to get rid of extreme poverty. They changes the genes of food so that they can increase the amount of food. These genes gave the food resistance so they can survive longer. These facts shows that GMO is a very good thing. HoweverWe started to figüre out that these food are changing us. That edited gene in the food causes serious diseases. For example cancer. The resistance in that gene supports the cancer cell. But the governments didn’t care about it. They edited more and more genes then the foods were completely changed. A tomato is like a football. Strawberrys are not even tasty. Also the GMO’s help growing in a bad way. I saw that a 5 years old have a beard all over her face because her parents gave her a lot of GMO food. So by looking at these points my opinion is using GMO is bad also good. It is a 50%50
ReplyDeleteLet me begin with my ideas about science. I am not saying that science is useless or it is wrong, to be honest science is one of the most important things inner life. Thanks to science we have cars, telephones and the many of the other things we use all the time. I mean science is important. It saves life , gives life and ıt is really important effect in our life but Is it really reliable.I think this is a difficult question. I think about the history and look at the news. Science should be a obvious thing which does not change people to people but it even contradicts with itself. Sometimes scientist say something. As an example I would like to us eggs. Eggs are the thing we eat all time. Everyone thought that eggs were healthy. they were good for our bodies and health but a while ago scientist said that eggs caused cancer. Most of the people stopped eating and buying. After that scientists made another explanation which said that they are healthy. As normal, ordinary we got confused. Is it or not. Personally, I couldn’t decide what to believe. And to be honest it made me to think about is it also about economy. The answer is yes it is. It is also about politics too. In someways. Science is bias these days but this is not my topic. As an answer of the question. I do not think that we can %100 be sure on science and its facts but they are helpful. If we need to talk about GMO too. I also think the same way about it. I do not think that we should all except what science says about GMOs but we also should not ignore them because our life may be depend of that possibility. As we mentioned in class GMOs are not useful or harmful in every ways. We need them to produce more food and end the starvation but there is also a possibility that it may be killing us. I mean it may be causing cancer. I think it is not natural so it is bad in that way too. But the real question is how are we going to feed that people who die from starve if we stop producing GMO food. They need to choose the way they would like to die in other words. Also I do not think that
ReplyDeleteorganic farms are that organic too. I mean they use some chemicals to kill the bugs and these chemicals may poisons that plant. And I think they may be even worse than GMO. But in another perspective there is history and elder people says that the food were better in their time and they we healthier. So there are lots of affects in other words. And as the sum I still could not decide what is wrong what is right. And what to believe.
I know scientifically we shouldn't eat GMO food because they are unhealthy and not good for us but i think we should look ethically. Do we say oh, GMO is not good for us so lets starve and die. No!!!!! I think if it is the only way to survive for poor people then they should eat it in order to live. Look at poor countries, they can't afford to buy quality food so they use GMO because they are cheap so they don't starve. I know it is not fair but this is world. We shouldn't be emotional about this subject. I think we shouldn't look scientificly either because some of the scientists say that it is harmful and some of them say the opposite....
ReplyDelete20th April, 2016
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion science is a reliable thing. But even if it is a confidential subject and I sometimes don't trust to science and scientists, for example, as we know that lots of people and esspacially scientists say that GMOs are very unhealty and they cause cancer. But I don't agree it. Because cancer is a disease about genes and I think GMOs don't affect to the genes. I think history tells the truest things about GMOs or things like that. Because it occured and it is true. Also we can ask questions to the old people that we wonder. So I mean it is so confidential. But science can be made up by the scientists. By the way these are my opinions you may think that science is the truest and it tells reliable things. But I think it is not.
23th April 2016
ReplyDeleteI really think that science is reliable on something but science isn't reliable on the things which is in progress. So basically science is reliable but they act so unsure when they're making a decision. they said that something is wrong and everyone stops doing it after a few days they're coming back like "now we are saying it is true !!" and everyone without thinking starts doing it.
So as I said science is sometimes reliable somtimes not.
What about history, we can't be sure on anything while looking to history, because humanity changed since 18** too. Humanity improved. We can't say that in 15** they did this so we have to do it, it is ridiculous that people can make decisions only with looking back ;
"It is so funny that people can make decisions only looking backwards. That makes their own knowledge disappear and it is so funny that people can make decisions only looking forwards. That makes their traditions disappear . Think about future without forgetting your history" (Ali Can 2016) whatever, ethics I think ethics are not reliable at all because they are bonded to a person at past so I don't think it is reliable.
I think that science is a reliable source. If they say that smth is wrong then no one should do it unless science sais the opposite thing. I dont think that GMOs affect cancer. Also if it affects then I am eating GMOs for 15 years and still healthy. Also where will you find the source to feed 7.4 billion people? And you should know that almost all of the farmers use GMOs but there is still 700 million people starving on the planet Earth. So I think that we should use GMOs in our foods even if it is unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteI think that science is the best resource that we can believe. There is a lot of scoentific resources about anything. With science you can prove anything and most people would believe to that. If some people would say that something is unhealty to humans and dangerous for their body, and science say the oppositte most people would believe to science. When you are doing a scientific resource, you should disable your emotions. You should think the resources and its results. If you look to the GMO foods, the reason that we are doing it is to harvest croops faster and plant new ones faster. So that we can look after 7 billion people. If there wouldn't GMO foods, crops would grow slower and the percentage of the yearlys foods that we harvest would decrease. If we came to health problems of GMO foods, i think it can trigger cancer. But it is not very unhealty. it is not going to start killing people who eats GMO. In this time, you can not run from GMO because there isn't left any organic things. Everything is modified by people. So you have to eat GMO to live. No one has died because of eating GMO foods before. So I can't say that GMO is compeletely harmful but I can't say that it is very good for our health too.
ReplyDeleteOur topic is how reliable science is, if you ask my idea, no! Actually I think that none of the theory of knowledges are hundred percent reliable. Sometimes you can't even believe in what you see, so how are we going to believe in a group of people that are "scientists". They are not even sure in one topic, every scientist thinks differently, it even happens with the doctors. They say that eating eggs is harmful and it makes cholesterol, people stop eating, and next year they say that they were wrong and people should eat eggs. And the people that are applying what people say without thinking and questioning are believing şn these. How can we know that they are not going to say the opposite tomorrow. I also think that it is stupid to believe that the scientists are hiding the ailliens and that GMO is bad because scientists say so at the same time, and there are some people that are thinking that way.
ReplyDeleteIf we have to get back to our topic, I think that tere is no way to know if messing with nature is right or wrong. I can only say that I believe that we shouldn't mess with nature. We have already seen that as we mess with the nature. We are destroying our world as the time passes.