Tok Presentation Script

TOK presentation speech script

Real-life situation:

Our real-life situation is about the electrical tunable eyeglasses which were designed and invented to be one size fitting all. These are called ‘smart glasses’ and were developed by a university of Utah team which was led by electrical and computer engineering professor Charlos H. Mastrangelo and his doctoral student Nazmal Hasan and the work was reported to the public on 11th of April 2017. The main objective of these glasses is to replace modern eyeglasses, and by its ability to change its lenses whenever your eyesight changes saves people a lot of time and money so that you don’t need to buy a new pair of glasses when your eyesight changes.

Knowledge questions:

This is one of our knowledge questions that we came up with for the real-life situation:

1. How are sense perception guided by the human sciences?

Claim:

I think that through the use of artificial and man-made devices and equipment, our sense perception is guided by the human sciences through different ways.

Examples/evidence:

An explicit example of this would be the fMRI scans which are studied in psychology. This is a man-made device created based upon the understanding of the human sciences. It measures changes in brain activity and shows activities in different regions of the brain by detecting blood flow and oxygen. This is helpful when understanding the human brain and to tell whether the patient is ill and in which area.

A more common and everyday example of this idea is the use of eye glasses, which also links to our real-life situation. People with problems with their eyes, such as short-sightedness or astigmatism, aren’t able to see things very clearly, but with the help of glasses, these people’s eye-sights are artificially and temporarily altered which means it can help them see clearer. There are also eye surgeries done which can permanently reshape the lenses and other structures of the eyes so that your vision returns to normal and you’ll be able to see things again without the help of glasses.

Counterclaim:

The human sciences can fail to guide our sense perception. Although devices and technology like fMRI scans and glasses are beneficial, they can only guide us to a certain degree and can sometimes fail to direct the right sense perceptions. Even if the attempt is successful, there can be very harmful side-effects.

Examples/evidence:

For example, x-rays, as learnt in psychology, are electromagnetic radiations which are useful when detecting abnormalities in the body but can also cause blood cell damage and increase risks of developing cancer in the future. Repeated exposure to these radiations, which are meant to help define and locate illnesses, can also change the bases of human DNA which causes mutations. These causes bad effects to human sense perceptions.