TOK Skill: Finding Authoritative Voices to Include in your Conversation

"The knower's perspective is essential in the pursuit of knowledge." To what extent do you agree?

In which Areas of Knowledge might the knower's perspective be essential to pursuit of knowledge?
Indigenous Knowledge Systems can produce sophisticated and accurate knowledge developed and transmitted orally over generations; a particular perspective, steeped in the specific environment to which the knowledge responds, is critical to the indigenous knowledge a people acquires. Famously, outsiders often overlook or dismiss knowledge of an indigenous people; such incidents show how failing to acknowledge perspective can disqualify a person from pursuit of indigenous knowledge. Jeanne Leffers, a nurse experienced in medical fly-in missions to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, "began to feel that ... the local people knew their culture, their local language and their communities better." She now supports partnering with local health professionals "to both teach and learn." Any attempt to treat a body embedded in a distinctive culture will require you take the time and effort to understand - I would even argue, respect - the perspective of the person. Something like this respect is demanded even of travel; on a tour of the Taos Pueblo, I purchased a clay hummingbird votive which evokes for me this unique location. Pursuing the palpable relaxed peace of the tour guide, however, would require spiritual disciplines which I have not taken the time to understand and incorporate into my dash-here-dash-there modern lifestyle.

Another area of knowledge which requires perspective is ...

In which Areas might a knower's perspective detrimentally affect pursuit of knowledge?
Natural Scientists expend great effort to limit the particular perspective of the knower. Scientific method demands isolation of independent and dependent variables in hopes that a cause and effect relationship might be established. A 'controlled' experiment recognizes and minimizes any factors that the scientist herself might bring to the table; scientists seek the objective view. Cullen Hendrix examines sampling bias in studies aimed to understand whether climate change will accelerate human conflict. "Researchers...are not sampling on the independent variable, which is climate change exposure," and instead "are sampling on the dependent variable (e.g. conflict)"; hence these scientists are not allowing themselves to find cases where there is great climate stress but little violence, and are focusing on cases where the violence is obvious. "It makes little intuitive sense to study conflict in places where it does not occur... But any epidemiologist will tell you that looking only at sick patients will lead to misleading inferences about causes."

So, when and why might a knower's perspective be essential in pursuing knowledge?
When knowledge is to be applied locally, the knower's perspective is essential to its pursuit; when knowledge is to be applied universally, the knower's perspective is at best irrelevant. This is because... Additionally, where perspective is essential, so is intuition. This is because...

Word Count (so far): 452

Works Cited:
Silver, Mark. Are Fly-in Medical Missions Helpful or Harmful? June 2, 2019 in Goats and Soda:               NPR's Global Health and Development blog.
       https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/06/02/716779821/we-asked-you-answered-are-fly-in-medical-missions-helpful-or-harmful
Hendrix, Cullen. The Sophomore Curse: Sampling Bias and the Future of Climate-Conflict
       Research. March 6, 2018 in NewSecurityBeat, the blog of the Environmental Change and                   Security Program. https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2018/03/sophomore-curse-sampling-bias-future-climate-conflict-research/

Questions students might ask:
1. How did you find the Silver article? 
It was on my NPR news app one morning. One way to prepare for the TOK essay is to begin reading the news regularly.
2. How did you find the Hendrix article? 
a. I googled "recent efforts in a scientific experiment to minimize scientist's perspective" which led me to b. google "research bias" which led me to c. google "a recent case of sampling bias" in which results I found the very helpful article by a dependable source which beautifully illustrates the point I am trying to make, using a real live scientist's voice.
3. How long did it take you to write this much?
Four one-hour sessions. I continually edit for concision, strength and clarity.
4. Why are you leaving trailing bits? (...)
Because I'm not finished yet - remember the TOK essay is 1600 words - and these cues indicate where I need to start next time.