1. Personal Knowledge vs. Shared Knowledge
Introduction to ToK:
Personal Knowledge vs. Shared Knowledge

2. Knowing about knowing TOK is a critical thinking course
It is about the inquiry into the process of knowing
The goal is to examine: HOW do we know what we claim to know.
Analyse knowledge claims
Explore knowledge questions

3. Discuss the following claims with your neighbour
For each claim decide (1) do you know it? (2) do we know it?
How could we test the claim? What would make you believe it is true?

4. Henry Ford invented the automobile

5. Drinking a moderate amount of red wine reduces the probability of a heart attack

6. Eating fat makes you fat

7. Eating sugar makes children hyperactive

8. 45% of body heat is lost through the head

9. Eating carrots makes your skin go orange

10. Body Hair Grows Back Thicker When You Shave It

11. We Use Only 10% of Our Brains

12. Henry Ford invented the automobile

13. Henry Ford invented the automobile
Henry Ford is often credited to have invented the automobile but this is far from the truth. Although several other German engineers were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern automobile. An automobile powered by his own four-stroke cycle gasoline engine was built in Mannheim, Germany by Karl Benz in 1885 and granted a patent in January of the following year under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie. Ford’s claim to automobile fame lies mainly in the number of cars he produced. He was the first to develop an inexpensive, standardized car that was widely accessible. He was also able to cut the costs of production by creating assembly-line style production plants that utilized adapted conveyer belts. These factors made his Model T the most popular car in the United States from 1908, when it came out, to 1928, when it was replaced by Ford’s model A.
Aird, Hazel B. Henry Ford: Young Man with Ideas (Childhood of Famous Americans Series). New York: Macmillan

14. Drinking a moderate amount of red wine reduces the probability of a heart attack

15. Drinking a moderate amount of red wine reduces the probability of a heart attack
When the data from 51 epidemiological studies were combined, they showed that the risk of coronary heart disease decreased by approximately 20% when 0 to 2 alcoholic drinks were consumed per day. Apparently healthy adults, patients with a history of heart attack, and patients with diabetes all appeared to benefit. Results from the large Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, a study in which 38,077 male health professionals who were free of cardiovascular disease were observed for 12 years, suggested that drinking 1 to 2 drinks per day, 3 to 4 days per week decreased the risk of having a heart attack by as much as 32%. The formation of an occluding blood clot in an artery that supplies part of the brain can lead to stroke. Light to moderate alcohol consumption was found to be associated with an approximately 20% reduction in the risk for ischemic stroke and may even be beneficial in preventing subsequent strokes.
American Heart Association Journal Circulation 2005.

16. Eating fat makes you fat

17. Eating fat makes you fat?
No definitive evidence – contradictory studies – low carb diets versus low fat diets

18. Eating sugar makes children hyperactive

19. Sugar and hyperactivity
Another myth exposed by the study was that sugar makes children hyperactive. At least a dozen high-quality studies have investigated the possibility of a link between children's behaviour and sugar intake, but none has found any difference between children who consumed a lot and those who did not. The belief appears mostly to be a figment of parents' imaginations. "When parents think their children have been given a drink containing sugar, even if it is really sugar-free, they rate their children's behaviour as more hyperactive," the researchers write.

20. 45% of body heat is lost through the head

21. Head heat loss
The myth is thought to have arisen through a flawed interpretation of a vaguely scientific experiment by the US military in the 1950s. In those studies, volunteers were dressed in Arctic survival suits and exposed to bitterly cold conditions. Because it was the only part of their bodies left uncovered, most of their heat was lost through their heads.

22. Eating carrots makes your skin go orange

23. Carrots and orange skin
The statement is too vague to be accurately supported or refuted. It is not clear how much is ’too much’. But beta carotine is known to discolour the skin.

24. Body Hair Grows Back Thicker When You Shave It

25. Body Hair Grows Back Thicker When You Shave It
Strong scientific evidence disproves these claims. As early as 1928, a clinical trial showed that shaving had no effect on hair growth. More recent studies confirm that shaving does not affect the thickness or rate of hair regrowth. In addition, shaving removes the dead portion of hair, not the living section lying below the skin's surface, so it is unlikely to affect the rate or type of growth. Shaved hair lacks the finer taper seen at the ends of unshaven hair, giving an impression of coarseness. Similarly, the new hair has not yet been lightened by the sun or other chemical exposures, resulting in an appearance that seems darker than existing hair.

26. We Use Only 10% of Our Brains

27. We Use Only 10% of Our Brains
"Evidence would show over a day you use 100 percent of the brain," says John Henley, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Although it's true that at any given moment all of the brain's regions are not concurrently firing.
The 10% statement may have been started with a misquote of Albert Einstein or the misinterpretation of the work of Pierre Flourens in the 1800s. It may have been William James who wrote in 1908: "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources" (from The Energies of Men, p. 12)

28. ToK is concerned with second order questions
How do we know that?
How do I know that?
We use the knowledge framework to help us organise these questions.

29. Personal vs. Shared Knowledge
Personal Knowledge = Individual Knowledge
Shared Knowledge = Knowledge produced by a group of people working together or separated by time or space. There are methods of producing this knowledge, norms, concepts and language

30. Personal Knowledge and shared knowledge

31. Shared knowledge

32. Personal Knowledge

33. Personal & Shared Knowledge
The same person reads a lot about Computer Programming, but who also writes his own programs.
Personal
knowledge
“I know
because…”
The same person is the only one who knows how he feels when he listens to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
Shared knowledge
“We know
because…”
Someone who was born in 1995 and knows about the moon landing only from history books
Shared Knowledge
as SOURCE of
Personal Knowledge

34. Personal & Shared Knowledge
Someone who has heard of curling, but who has never seen it or played it, who knows no one who plays it, and who doesn’t read about it.
Someone who has studied the Mexican Revolution in school, but who has done no further reading or research.
Someone with a passion for Japanese music, who buys it, listens to it, and reads about it often.
Shared knowledge
“We know
because…”
A professional entomologist who has not only studied entomology for many years, but who has also contributed much to shared knowledge through research, publications, and professional presentations.
Personal
knowledge
“I know
because…”
Illustrating how much of the available shared knowledge there is an individual has learned.

35. Personal & Shared Knowledge
Only experience with butterflies is from seeing them flying around the yard and reading about them in story books.
Person 3
Professional Entomologist
Shared knowledge
“We know
because…”
Person 2
University student; taken numerous biology classes, including some introductory courses in Entomology. Sponsors annual NABA count.
Person 4
Amateur with a passion for lepidoptera. Participates in the annual NABA Butterfly Count; keeps records of sightings; takes photographs; member professional organization.

36. In a ToK course we spend more time on shared knowledge than personal knowledge

37. CONCEPTIONS OF A FLAT EARTH
Handout
Article
Does this article change your mind? Why or why not?
Is the information in this article more reliable than the information you had prior to reading the article? Why or why not?
Is new information sufficient to change people's minds about their beliefs?
(in pairs) Draw a Venn Diagram to model your old and new understandings about the flat earth myth.
Show and explain them to the group

38. CONCEPTIONS OF A FLAT EARTH
Discussion
Where do we get Personal knowledge from?
Can our personal/shared knowledge be wrong?
What enables us to evaluate the sources?