TOK Entry - TOK Presentation

Theory of Knowledge and GMOs

We focused on a personal situation for the real life situation that led us to our topic. Marsha’s grandfather farms in corn fields and he farms genetically modified corn after many failures due to pests and herbicides. GM maize has been used in many countries but some have raised controversy on the harmful impacts on insects and plants and other health issues in human.

Our knowledge question explores the theory of knowledge issues through the topic of GM foods and analyzes different approaches to the knowledge question and how it affects our understanding. So the knowledge question we derived from our real life situation was “What sources of knowledge can we trust in order to decide how to view GMOs?”

There are many benefits that come with GMOs. Many of them have had DNA resistant to bacteria and to herbicides inserted, causing them to become resistant to diseases and to herbicides, which will increase crop yield in the long run. However, not all the aspects of GMOs are so positive. Many environmentalists are worried that if all organisms are changed so that they display a particular gene, it will result in a decrease in biodiversity.

Referring back to our central knowledge question, the crucial idea to take away from this was that it is fundamental to have a clear, well-rounded knowledge base before people make a judgment for themselves. In the case of GMOs, because of the large lack of awareness on the topic, it is all the more important to raise awareness to have both the producers of the products as well as the consumers make informed decisions.