The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

The Church was founded by Joseph Smith Jr on April 6th 1830 in New York. It was created when Joseph was wondering through the woods contemplating his sins when he was praying and the lord approached him telling him that all the other religions are wrong. 2 Years later a angel approached him and told him that there is a book written on gold tablets hidden in a hill. 


Abortion is wrong. Homosexuality is wrong, and homosexual rights vehemently opposed. The divine role of woman is mother and wife, helper to the husband. Men are regarded as the head of the family, provider, leader, and teacher. Satan rules the earth and causes misery to mankind. One's spirit immediately joins the spirit world and will be assigned to either paradise or spirit prison from your life and beliefs on earth.At the Final Judgment and Resurrection, most will be assigned to a one of three kingdoms of heaven where spiritual growth continues. Only a few, the most extreme sinners, will suffer eternal torture in the outer darkness.

The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are twelve full-time paid officers of the Church. Like the Apostles of Christ's day these men leave their professions to serve Christ full time. Mormons regard this group as another example of the literal restoration of the church established by Jesus Christ. The bible is said to be the most important text of their religion and the next most important book is The book of Mormon. 

I find the different religions that have been formed from the story of Jesus Christ is very interesting and how the stories have changed over time in each religion and the other religions that are created to this day from that one story.

I am an atheist so I do not believe in the historical context to which this religion believes around the creation of the world and life. Also the creation of this religion I don't think is very believable. I think some of the values that this religion holds around values and ethics to live are correct. But some of the others I think hold no value in living life.

The TOK ways of knowing would approach knowledge as untrue. As there is no evidence it is just the word of one man. Also logic could be used form previous knowledge to believe that the religion was untrue as it was unbelievable.

language maps of Africa, Asia and the America

The most concetrated areas are around central africa, south america, indonesia and southern china. Indonesia is very open and was populated by many countries with different languages. Russia has a very small amout of languages and iceland also ahs not very many languages once languages start to die it is very hard to chnage human acceptance and normals in a society so if it starts tro decline it will most likely keep declining through generations untill it is gone.

provocative revisionist historical argument: That China circumnavigated and mapped the globe centuries before the European explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries.

First argument about Chinese being on NZ because of horses:
A number of critics have emailed me about the size of the tankers required by Zheng He`s fleets to provide water for horses, arguing that the limiting factor on the number of horses was the number of water tankers; it would have been impossible to desalinate anywhere near enough water to satisfy more than a handful of horses as each needs about three gallons a day. Now, apply this to the Maori scenario, travelling from Tahiti to New Zealand in open canoes. They must have brought at least two horses to breed as one pregnant mare would not produce a line. I have taken my submarine from New Zealand to Tahiti; the seas are short and choppy most of the year which makes for a difficult journey which would probably have taken at least six weeks. Horses drink more in exposed conditions of high humidity such as spray in an open boat, so the consumption is likely to have been at least five gallons a day per horse, which for a six-week journey amounts to 420 gallons or around a ton of water per animal. Then, of course, the animals would have needed hay, and that`s not to mention food and water for the boats` crews. I submit that it would have been impossible for Maoris to bring horses to New Zealand. The wild Kaimanawa ponies of North Island must therefore have been brought by others, either Europeans or Chinese. DNA tests are in hand for the Kaimanawa, the Pasos of Peru, the Assateagues of the islands off Virginia and the Kiger Mustangs of North America. I believe their common ancestor will turn out to be the blood horses of Tajikistan which were the mounts of the Chinese cavalry


Second view on that horses were brought in NZ in 1840

Europeans introduced horses to New Zealand from the early 19th century. At first horses were uncommon and expensive, so only chiefs owned them. Government officials often gifted horses to chiefs as a sign of goodwill.

Hapū (sub-tribes) banded together to buy horses, paying for them with large numbers of pigs or quantities of flax. Horses made overland travel faster, and probably helped bring neighbouring hapū and iwi (tribes) closer together.

From the 1840s, some tribes had significant numbers of horses and were able to gift them to other iwi. In some areas, Māori owned more horses than local Pākehācommunities. By the 1850s, horses were the main form of land transport for Māori.

Horses were used by all iwi involved in the New Zealand wars of the 1860s.

The second view is vastly different from the first as it states that the first horses seen by Maori are in the late 1800's where as the the first view thinks that horses are brought into NZ much much earlier. I think that because or knowledge on information can change vastly e.g shape of the world or the revolution of the solar system this means that a new theory can be accepted if it has the evidence to back it up and if the first view can be proved then I can accept it but the second view is more realistic as it has been known and accepted for much longer. So as long as the first view about horses can be proven then i think is is plausible. 

Participant observation and Cross cultural studies

Participant observation is a type of reasuch strategy. It is a widely used in many disciplines such as human sciences. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity for information in different scenarios to record data for experiments. Having people participate research usually involves a range of methods: informal interviews direct observations participating in the life of the group, collective discussions , analyses of person documents produced within the group. For experiment is ways of scientists gaining information for theroes. Participant observation has its roots in anthropology and its use as a methodology.

Cross cultural studies is a study shown especially in anthropology and other sciences that uses data to compare human data to create theories about culture and behavior oh humans. Cross cultural uses a wide range of data before making assumptions based on that dat unlike comparative studies.

Week 17 Ib Tok

In class we did an exercise where I was an observer in the activity. I recorded the hand movements and gesture made by the people being observed and i found out that the gestured were changing through the activity as the people being observed were to busy figuring out what we were doing and that changed their movements. Because of this change in normal movements the data was false as the act of humans being intuitive made them wonder what we were doing and figure out what we were doing. After they found out what we were doing they changed their behaviour.
So for true results the people being observed must not see or know about the test so the actions of the people being observed would not change for the results.

Week 8 quantum physics

Quantum physics uses both inductive and deductive reasoning to create thoerys because without that kind of thinking nothing would be explored as no assumptions are made. But the scientists agree that quantum physics is hard to be certain about as the way that small objects of matter opperate but assumptions have been made and that has allowed us to gain a bigger undestanding of quantum physics untill technology allows us to fully explain the movement and reasoning behind quantum physics.

TOK

TOK class on 2/02/2011

I enjoyed the first class and thinking about what subjects we use in our thinking. Words that i have never thought throughly about were interesting when we discussed them around the class. The way of teaching done by Mr Smith creates an argumentive atmosphere.

TOK class 11/02/2011

My key argument is that there is a link between the MMR  shots and autism.

Evidence to support this claim is shown through the hundreds and maybe even thousands of familys with children that have had the behaviour of a normal child before the MMR shot and they have evidence to suppport that normal behaviour and then after the shot the children devlop autism. Showing a direct link between autism and the MMR shots.

Evidence against this claim is mostly from the company that makes the MMR shots and will not show any evidence of trials done to support those claims (probaly because those trials were not very extensive)  made by the company and the people that are paid by the company.

My belief in the claim of there being a link between MMR and autism is strengthened by the familys that show that connection and had to suffer because of it. Experts in the matter admit that "the minority of the human race has to suffer in order for the majority to prevail" but the people that are affected are not looked after even by their sacrafice most of the time an unwilling sacrafice.3/03/2011What has suprised me about the devlopment of Science?What has suprised me is that it takes people with a passion  of explaining the universe with facts not just theorys. As we can see in the video this man in Prague has not gotten noticed as much as the people who invented the tools he used, even though he had the initive to use them to document the movement of the stars. This helped create evidence that can be looked at to see patterns to map the cosmos. I think that different advancments in science have benn done in different ways from accidents to drafting a thoery then finding the evidence to prove that thoery then publishing it. I think that peoples achievments in devlopment in Science should not just be mearured by the way we think about the universe and affect our lives but also by the amount of work by all contributers involved in the achievment.

Recapitulation theory
Recapitulation is a hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of their remote ancestors
Why did people believe this theory?
The theory originated in 1790, among German natural philosophers. Since the theory was made in a time where there was not much knowledge about growth of babies, and this was one of the only theories about it at the time. This lead everyone to believe in it as they had no knowledge and that there were no other theories to oppose it.

Why do people no longer believe in these theories?
People no longer believe in this theory, because of the advance in science which has lead to us having better knowledge of how babies develop inside the female. Equipment such as ultra sound, which allows us to see the baby before it has been born in its different stages of growth. Due to this knowledge it is clear that the babies do not go through stages that represent the different parts of their ancestry evolution.

Is this theory now obsolete?
Yes this theory in now obsolete, as technology has shown us this.
However it is possible that dispute over this theory lead to further-
research of this topic, and eventually led to our knowledge of growth-
of babies that we accept.

Caloric theory:
Antoine Lavoisier in 1770's believe that there is a substance called caloric which is the make up of heat. The fluid flows from hotter to colder substances. For example a cup of tea lets out caloric fluid out into the cooler room, therefore raises room temperature and looses its heat.

Why did people believe this theory?
People believed this because there was no other scientific evidence-
at the time to contradict the theory because no one had discovered-
or proven another theory.

Why do people no longer believe this theory?
People no longer believe this theory as another theory has been created with more evidence than the last theory and a more believable theory that people can test for themselves.

 Is this theory now obsolete?
This theory is not obsolete in the fact that it describes the movement of heat in substances and that heat can travel. But the theory of fluid in heat is wrong and has been proven so. Also the description of how heat travels has not been described correctly as it has been proven wrong. So aspects of this theory have been proven wrong but some aspects have been proven correct so without these wrong theorys the correct one will take much longer to be found.

Phlogiston Theory:

Phlogiston theory: The theory states that all flammable materials contain the substance phlogiston a substance without colour, odour, taste or mass. Once burned the material will be in its true form calx when not in it's true form it is described as dephlogisticated.When air had become completely phlogisticated it would no longer serve to support combustion of any material, nor would a metal heated in it yield a calx; nor could phlogisticated air support life, for the role of air in respiration was to remove the phlogiston from the body.

Why did people believe this theory?

This theory was stated in 1667 and at that time people had little knowledge-

about combustion so they believed it without hesitation as they had nothing-

to compare it to.

Who do people no longer believe in this theory?

People no longer believe these theories as a better one with evidence that can be tested by anyone and is more believable when rationally thought about.

Is this theory now obsolete?

This theory is now obsolete as all aspects of this theory has been proven wrong and we can sort of tell that this guy Johann Joachim Becher was sort of unsure about the theory and has used aspects of his theory to make it harder to prove wrong for example the characteristics of phlogiston makes it impossible to test scientifically if it is each and every substance that is combustible. But over time a new theory has been created that proves this theory wrong as phlogiston was described in a way basically the opposite of the real role of oxygen and by having evidence to back up the theory as this theory has none.