Twelve Angry Men

Twelve Angry Men Worksheet by Michael Smith

The History and Effects of the Media

Selective Attention Test

Asperger's and Perception

Did Kodak alter our perception?

A nice article showing that in the 1950s and 60s, Kodak's choice of model's for colour filters may have altered our perception of people with darker skin tones

Introduction to Sense Perception

How many Senses Do We Have?

How Many Senses Do We Have?

Super Senses

Human Sense Perception

In this episode of the BBC science podcast 'The Infinite Monkey Cage' a panel including the graphic novelist Alan Moore discuss the nature of human perception.

Our Perception of Time

The Man Who Saw Time Stand Still

Perceiving Gender

Humans Have a Nose for Gender

Our Perception of Ourselves

How Do Other Animals See The World?

Jesus appears in pot of marmite

I spotted a story in the news this week about a Welsh family who found the image of Jesus on the lid of a pot of sandwich spread. What do you think?:

I know that God moves in mysterious ways, but this is a bit too mysterious for my liking. It appears to be a case of a perceiving something that you want to in an otherwise random assortment of shapes. The family, themselves, appear to take comfort in the appearance of the image, saying "We've had a tough couple of months; my mum's been really ill and it's comforting to think that if he is there, he's watching over us."

After a quick perusal of google I have realised these kinds of sightings are a lot more common than you might think. In recent years Jesus' face has appeared on, among other things, a beer bottle, a fish stick, a shower curtain, a nebula, a pancake and a tortilla:

Pareidolia 

Philosophy Postcards

As tweeted by Richard van de Lagemaat on his TOK Tweet this week, here is a series of images by graphic designer Genís Carrerasin in which he uses simple images to describe many philosophical concepts covered in TOK. In describing his work, Carrerasin says “I wanted to make philosophy look better, to feel more contemporary and relevant. For me shapes and colors are a way to communicate, a way that can break through language and age barriers. As a graphic designer, this is the only way I knew.”

Best viewed full screen in order to make out the written definitions.

Tok postcards from Michael Smith

Different Kinds of Minds

Japanese History Lessons

Here's a BBC article (written by a former IB student) about history teaching in Japanese schools. She suggests that students' perception of events during the Sino-Japanese War and Second World War may have serious effects on international relations in the region, and therefore history teachers have considerable responsibility in shaping future events as well as accounts of those in the past. As in many countries, history teaching has become very politicised, and debates seem to be raging between the authors of different textbooks about how history should be presented in the classroom.

Japanese History Lessons 

Perception

- Neil Degrasse Tyson

Perception and Art

Eric Kandel (born November 7, 1929) is an American neuropsychiatrist. He specialises in research into the nature of memory, for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2000. Here he talks about the links between art, perception, emotion and biology:

Scepticism

Scepticism, or skepticism (if you are in the U.S.), derives from the Greek work skeptomai, which means to think or consider. It is generally used to denote doubt or incredulity about particular ideas, or a wider view about the impossibility of having certain knowledge. This uncertainty is a philosophical position, and philosophical scepticism refers to the systematic doubt and testing of ideas.

Recently, sceptics (or skeptics) have become synonymous with two particular groups of people: those who doubt the accepted scientific consensus (for instance "climate change sceptics") and those who question these questioners (James Randi, for example, refers to himself as a skeptic). It's interesting that two completely disparate sets of thinkers could give themselves the same label.

In this (rather long) podcast a group of academics discus the philosophical origins and importance of scepticism in developing knowledge and belief.