Blog Post #10: Measuring Intent

http://www.happiness-survey.com/

"The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire is being used here with kind permission of Elsevier Ltd., license #1885930815114. It was extracted from Personality and Individual Differences, Vol.33, #7, pp. 1080-1081 and developed by: Peter Hills and Micahel Argyle from The Oxford Happiness Project, School of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK."

Surveys are described by google as a general view or examination of someone, a group or something, this 'general' view allows the examiners of the survey to form correlations between results and external factors in order to form a conclusion. Correlations can be extremely weak or provide an in depth insight into our society, however, these correlations are formed by interpretations of data which makes them flimsy due to each person's personal bias. 
The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire which has about 29 questions which will provide you your "happiness" level, "1" being the unhappiest and "6" being the happiest. All this statements ask you to rank certain things from a scale of 1-6, "1" being strongly disagree and "6" being strongly agree. The intent of the survey is unclear but it assures you that they will not disclose any of your personal details. 
It poses an extensive amount of issues as the idea of measuring happiness seems empty to due it being an emotion which differs completely from person to person as it is an internal thought process. Humans attempt to communicate this emotion through language, however, language is not always accurate and doesn't express the full extent of emotion so to generalize happiness numerically removes this key communicator of dialectical language. 
The idea of measuring happiness is problematic enough but then you add in statements which participants must rank based on their life and it creates further interpretation problems or even emotions lost in translation. People taking the surveys may interpret the specific statements and numerical values differently to the person who created the survey or even the person evaluating the results. Some statements may cause emotions to get lost in translation as their significance to happiness may differ from person to person with the creators or examiners values of happiness differentiating from society's. "I have very warm feelings towards almost everyone," here is a statement from the survey which the participant has to rate whether they agree or not with it. The creator's intent fro the question may express his values of happiness which is defined by how much he likes the people around him. While others may only need to enjoy the company of a few people around them to achieve significant happiness rather than the greater who believes liking everyone achieves greater happiness. The lack of justification the person gets while answering the survey restricts to them reasoning their answer manipulating the examiners interpretations due to the purely numerical values. A emotional language barrier is further created by the creator using the word "warm" which can greatly vary from person to person as he is using a temperate metaphor to describe feelings. In my previous discussions, I immediately perceived it as like but this terminology is so broad to describe emotion that it may vary causing complications. 
Clarifications in the short statements may aid comprehensions but it has the risk of further confusing the participants. The lack of justification they get in their answers restricts the interpretations and correlations that can be made about happiness due the the implementation of personal mindsets of the examiners. Even with the addition of text boxes there is no guarantee of how honest people will be on an online survey and their responses may be lost in translation, that is why many studies are preferred to be done in person. 

Blog Post #9: Real-Life Application

Task: Choose two examples that help your audience understand competing views or different perspectives of the same issue you focused on for your group inquiry. Provide an understanding of the situation, what issue it helps to discuss, and how that issue relates to your chosen essay title.
Be sure to link your topic into the appropriate area of the knowledge framework and use TOK terminology where possible. This blog post should in sufficient detail to show deep thinking about the AOK. You have lots of time to complete this post so take it seriously and practice applying your TOK terminology and concepts.

A is a simplified representation of some aspect of the world. In what ways may models help or hinder the search for knowledge?

In this blog post, I will explore different real life models that we use in day to day life in the scientific field. I don't want to focus on just two because I feel many models have the same problem as well as the same benefit. Models within the field can be sparked by either inductive or deductive reasoning as it may depict a theory, observation or both. Google defines a model as either "a three-dimensional representation of a person or thing or of a proposed structure, typically on a smaller scale than the original," or "a thing used as an example to follow or imitate." They key concept from both definitions is that they are supposed to be a "smaller scale" or an "example" which implies that they are a simplified version of something larger. This is evident in the natural sciences as models are supposed to be simplified versions of concepts or theories that aid the understanding of knowledge. They can be used to depict methodology, theories or historical development. However, the fundamental quality of the simplicity of a model is what restricts science and the scientific field.

Models are used to understand information on a certain level, no matter how detailed a model is they are simply used to develop our knowledge and reason within the field rather than express the entire story as that would over complicate concepts. This simplistic nature is what makes the most basic models "wrong" to some extent but you can't say they are exactly "wrong" as they just do not express the fine details that may be important.

A simple model used for health and biology is the Harvard Food Pyramid which expresses the foods individuals should focus on in order to maintain a healthy body and satisfy their biological needs. This display of the "healthy diet" condenses thousands and thousands of studies down into one generalised portrayal of the human diet which causes the assumption that a substantial amount of information of side notes was left out. Over the years it has been manipulated and changed so many times which makes us question whether the human race is evolving. However, the biggest cause of its constant manipulation is due to the constant realisations nutritionists go through using new experiments or reevaluating the old ones. The basic pyramid manages to printed examples of food it is discussing and presents a slight variety but many say it focuses on specific foods too much or the pyramid group's certain groups together which should be separate. This pyramid is the perfect representation of a simple model as has the ability to provide a wide range of data from numerous studies across a large duration of time. Its information manages to express the fundamentals that most of the human race must consume taking results from people of multiple races within the US. It may have many benefits but the constant change is evidence that it may confuse or harm the community in certain ways due to its simplicity which is common in all models. Things like proportion confused the public which transitioned the pyramid to a plate but the plate fails to provide as many examples as the pyramid. Nutritionists also complain that the grouping of certain items allude to false ideas of that product, for example, the grouping of carbohydrates continues to be a problem as they do not divide complex and simple carbs or good and bad carbs. It bases a heavy amount of its data on what people like to eat but not what they nutritionally need as it has been proved that it is not necessary to consume processed wheat like bread or cows milk. This imagery implies that it is needed to be healthy even though are other "healthier" forms of consumption for nutrition like dairy.

https://utw10426.utweb.utexas.edu/Topics/False.models/Text.html
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/centennial-food-guides-history/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/pyramidtest/

Another model which is commonly used in the field often used for the methodological side. Animal testing has been used for years due to animals similar and the reduced ethical considerations surrounding animal testing. They are used for cosmetics, diseases, cures, gene manipulation and other scientific developments as well as human sciences like psychology. The experimentation on animals which are similar in humans genes aid many biological and medical developments. Their physical and mental growth is faster than a human with them usually having a shorter lifespan which allows scientists to identify and manipulate the experiments easier receiving faster results. It is considered the most accurate form of experimentation without using as human as testing on cells does not provide sufficient information or observational knowledge. Scientists can test on animals a little bit more freely as there are less ethical concerns subjected to animal testing in comparison to human testing. Even though many animals have DNA similar to humans it is not the same which means there are a number of unknown factors and affects transitioning to human trials. This different DNA also makes it hard to create claims which require a significant amount of research exposing hundreds of animals to testing. Ethical considerations may prevent the animals from some harm but they also prevent scientists from experimenting a number of methods restricting their aims and results. Since the growth of many animals used is faster than humans any results found may be completely different over the entire lifetime of a human.

Animal testing may be a methodical model and more complex than certain diagrams or visual models but it is still a simplified version of reality in order to understand knowledge and manipulate it. Its simplicity is what makes it so useful to scientists and the public while making it unreliable as it is not the real thing or the whole picture.

http://futureofworking.com/12-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-animal-testing-on-cosmetics/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241690681_Advantages_and_disadvantages_of_the_animal_models_v_in_vitro_studies_in_iron_metabolism_A_review