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HELP! TOK Essay (We are more likely to be mistaken in our general conclusions than in our specific observations...)


Drew Doehring

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Please help! I failed my last TOK essay in which I used my teachers template to write my methods essay. In order to do well on this one I need help with writing my Arguments essay. Its 700-800 words and my topic is "We are more likely to be mistaken in our general conclusions than in our specific observations. To what extent does this claim apply to two (or more) real life situations?"

I'm thinking about using the general observation that the skies blue and then specific observation of why, but I still need another one and don't know how to format my essay.

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The sky being blue seems like a generic example, one that will not impress your teacher nor further your argument much. I agree with your main statement though.

Another example could be in the area of knowledge social sciences, specifically psychology. For example, you might notice that "Tom" is an introvert, and that he also plays baseball. Your statements about Tom would be correct, but if you said introverts were more likely to play baseball, that could be wrong. Thus, in social sciences, you cannot use personal anecdotes about a specific person to prove your argument. Instead, you use the "law of large numbers". You cannot draw a valid conclusion from a too small sample. Also, you cannot do the reverse, apply results from a large group of individuals to one person. If, for example, boys are 10% more likely to be introverts, you cannot state that the boy you are talking is going to be an introvert. However, the statistic, if correct, will prove true when you interview a larger amount of boys. This is one example for your essay.

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What example would you give for history for my counter claim that sometimes in history, theories are not discarded but just made better and adapted??

You could Look at the new book about causes of WW1 maybe, the sleepwalkers, which looks at it in a new way, but with the same old facts and involves old theories (haven't actually read it so I'm sorry if I'm a little off) look at this: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/421230.article

Obviously, in history, it can be all about interpretation of facts, given that history is limited due to the fact that not everything can be recorded. This might be worth mentioning?

Edited by under-cover
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Literally any theory is history has developments. If you consider science in history to be historical you could look at this: http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/atom-development-atomic-theory.html

The atom theory is a theory that was made better and adapted.

But if you don't feel like that exactly counts as history, you can literally look at any ANY event in history, and assuming it is significant enough, there will be varying interpretations of it across times and different historians.

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