Help with ToK Presentation

[darb]

So I have to do my ToK presentation exactly a week from today, and I'm concerned about it. I know what I want to do as my RLS, but I'm not sure where to go with it. My RLS is to look at the infamous report claiming vaccines can cause autism and trying to look at something related to that. My KQ for the scenario was going to be something along the lines of "To what extent can we know that scientific reports are factual and trustworthy?" and then look at various WoKs to try to answer that, but I met with my teacher about it in class today, and in a way he seemed to almost shut that idea down. He told me I should try to look at why some people trust that report, but don't trust the numerous other reports out there that claim the information it presents is false. So I kind of have a starting point, but I don't know where to go after that. If anyone has some ideas or could offer some advice that would be much appreciated.

[ImAcatnow]

Hi,

I've actually heard about this issue a few times. Your teacher is right about how you might want to look at why people trust the report. Your question could be modified to look at it from both points of views. Maybe instead of "To what extent can we know that scientific reports are factual and trustworthy?" you could add a WOK and an AOK to make it less biased to one side of the belief.

For example, there was a student sample presentation where they had chosen the controversial photograph of a starving child in Africa that became quite popular. They made implicit and explicit claims. Implicit claims being about art and photography and responsibility while the explicit claims were straightly taken off of the article itself, involving the name of the photographer and what he did. The student then generated four questions to make the ultimate KQ. The KQ that they made didn't focus on whether people would believe it was right or wrong. It involved two AOK. "What should be the role of Ethical decision making be in the production of art?" was the one the student went for. 

"To what extent can reason and emotion be used to make ethical decisions in the making of art?" could be another one.

So then when you make your presentation. This is a website that helps with effectively structuring your presentation

I hope this somewhat helped.

[darb]

Thank you, I'm very much appreciative of your help.

My one question for you is what exactly you mean by "make it less biased to one side of the belief." Do you mean this in the sense that my thinking might be biased based on how credible I think the report is? Or am I maybe missing something?

Also, when you say to add a WoK and AoK, I'm assuming you mean add them to the KQ, but I would like to clarify if my assumption is true.

[ImAcatnow]

23 hours ago, darb said:

Thank you, I'm very much appreciative of your help.

My one question for you is what exactly you mean by "make it less biased to one side of the belief." Do you mean this in the sense that my thinking might be biased based on how credible I think the report is? Or am I maybe missing something?

Also, when you say to add a WoK and AoK, I'm assuming you mean add them to the KQ, but I would like to clarify if my assumption is true.

Hi,

I meant more like instead of towards how they are trustworthy and factual, you could look towards how a WOK could be used to decide whether or not an AOK related to the topic you chose is true or false. 

Like the example I had mentioned, "To what extent can reason and emotion be used to make ethical decisions in the making of art?", this looks at how reason and emotion could be used to make ethical decisions rather than, let's say, "How is an artist responsible for ethics in their making of art?" The second question might have more of a confirmation biased answer since it is specifically asking for how they are responsible for ways they are responsible while the first question is looking towards whether or not reason and emotion can even be used to make ethical decisions and to what extent. 

I realise that it might not make sense since your question is "To what extent can we know that scientific reports are factual and trustworthy?" and it does look at the extent of how factual and trustworthy they are but while researching. It's not how your thinking might be biased based on the credibility of the report, it's more of how you might end up focusing only on how credible a scientific report is rather than looking at how it can be unbelievable.

Yes, I do mean add the WOK and AOK to the KQ.

I'm sorry if this was all over the place

-K