TOK OP KQ Help

[HLFilm]

Hello! I'll be doing my TOK OP soon and my teachers aren't very helpful.. so I was wondering if I could show you all my brainstorm here and if you guys could deduce if it is doable? 

To what extent is language a reliable way of knowing in the natural sciences?

My RLS is:

The Father of Genetics, Gregor Mendel, in 1865 presented his results in German, the language of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of which he was a citizen living in Brun now in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, his work was not noticed by the rest of the world until it was rediscovered by American researchers in the early 1900s. Much to their credit, they attributed the discovery of Mendel's Laws to him. How much more would the Science of Genetics have progressed had Mendel's work been known by the rest of the world instead of just among the German speakers since 1865?

I'm arguing whether language is a reliable WOK in the natural science and my stand is that it is not because of it's inherent flaw as a WOK (language is subjective, the ubiquity of languages makes it difficult for the AOK in natural science because natural science is an objective study and language is tethered to emotion, culture, etc.) There's also the issue of loss in translation.

In my presentation, I'm planning to talk about how monolingualism is a solution to the issue of the unreliability of language in natural science (i.e. adopting a universal language in natural science, it's always been a thing. Today, it's English) and real life examples of this is the use of IUPAC. On top of this, the use of models, diagrams help to overcome the unreliability of language. The reason why people need to come up with ways to work around the flaw of language is because without language, scientists would not have access to earlier established and accepted theories which means they would all have to start from the very beginning, the very basic ideas in their science.

My counter-argument is that in practice, this 'homogenous' attitude selected a very specific way of looking at the world (due to monolingualism), therefore one can make it easy to discount other types of information as nothing more than folklore. I'm arguing that knowledge that isn't produced via traditional academic research methods which commonly exists in other languages still have scientific value such as indigenous tribes in Indonesia who knew from oral histories how to recognize the signs of impeding earthquakes, enabling them to flee higher ground before the 2004 tsunami hit. Furthermore, the very act of eradicating different languages in the approach to natural science might actually be a disadvantage to the construction of knowledge in general as less scientists may be motivated to conduct these experiments if the audience is not wide enough in their native tongue.  

 

What do you guys think? How can I improve?

 

Thank you!

Edited January 31, 2017 by HLFilm

[HLDance]

On 1/31/2017 at 7:54 PM, HLFilm said:

Hello! I'll be doing my TOK OP soon and my teachers aren't very helpful.. so I was wondering if I could show you all my brainstorm here and if you guys could deduce if it is doable? 

To what extent is language a reliable way of knowing in the natural sciences?

My RLS is:

The Father of Genetics, Gregor Mendel, in 1865 presented his results in German, the language of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of which he was a citizen living in Brun now in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, his work was not noticed by the rest of the world until it was rediscovered by American researchers in the early 1900s. Much to their credit, they attributed the discovery of Mendel's Laws to him. How much more would the Science of Genetics have progressed had Mendel's work been known by the rest of the world instead of just among the German speakers since 1865?

I'm arguing whether language is a reliable WOK in the natural science and my stand is that it is not because of it's inherent flaw as a WOK (language is subjective, the ubiquity of languages makes it difficult for the AOK in natural science because natural science is an objective study and language is tethered to emotion, culture, etc.) There's also the issue of loss in translation.

In my presentation, I'm planning to talk about how monolingualism is a solution to the issue of the unreliability of language in natural science (i.e. adopting a universal language in natural science, it's always been a thing. Today, it's English) and real life examples of this is the use of IUPAC. On top of this, the use of models, diagrams help to overcome the unreliability of language. The reason why people need to come up with ways to work around the flaw of language is because without language, scientists would not have access to earlier established and accepted theories which means they would all have to start from the very beginning, the very basic ideas in their science.

My counter-argument is that in practice, this 'homogenous' attitude selected a very specific way of looking at the world (due to monolingualism), therefore one can make it easy to discount other types of information as nothing more than folklore. I'm arguing that knowledge that isn't produced via traditional academic research methods which commonly exists in other languages still have scientific value such as indigenous tribes in Indonesia who knew from oral histories how to recognize the signs of impeding earthquakes, enabling them to flee higher ground before the 2004 tsunami hit. Furthermore, the very act of eradicating different languages in the approach to natural science might actually be a disadvantage to the construction of knowledge in general as less scientists may be motivated to conduct these experiments if the audience is not wide enough in their native tongue.  

What do you guys think? How can I improve?

Thank you!

Hi may i know what was your grade for this OP?