Blog Post 5

The true meaning to research has changed in the course of several years just like our vitamins. Present day research focus on specifics. Referring back to the vitamins, vitamins now come in variety of categories, calcium to strengthen your bones, iron for anemia, fish oil for healthy skin and joint strength, and of course we have the traditional women/men a day multivitamin. Each category of vitamins has been verified by a “specialist”. Just like that-research has begun to focus only into specific topics and subjects of a broader field.

In the reading The politics of research an excerpt from chapter 7 author Brian Martin, it comes to the conclusion that research has two major influences to producing knowledge, #1 funding and #2 disciplines. But the further question is what exactly is knowledge? “The word knowledge suggests certainty, authorativeness, and usefulness.” (p124).  Knowledge is never steady, it changes, examples listed “mechanics of evolution or the development of countients”.  Although knowledge is a key tool in today’s society, much is being ignored. Funding is an essential part of research and when a specific field is not being funded enough the new knowledge will never exist. For example: NASA has been faced with a huge budget cut back in February. If NASA continues to get little funding, countries like Russia will advance in making new astronomic discoveries.

I found Martins ideals of What can be done most intriguing, because I couldn’t have agreed more. I strongly agree on critical teaching. Critical teaching exercises our brains to think outside of the box and allows to become more creative individuals.

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Knowledge is everywhere

Professional researchers are influenced by hierarchy, disciplines, funding and competition. In this informative passage, Brian Martin lists some of the strategies to challenge the pattern of critical teaching and research, popularization and community participation. One aspect that struck me as importance is knowledge. “The word knowledge suggests certainty, authoritativeness, even usefulness” (Martin 124) and I agree with what he has to say because knowledge is all around us and we as a society,as human beings help create knowledge.

It is definitely a great thing to be knowledgable but as we all know knowledge is sometimes limited. Brian Martin expressed, “Knowledge isn’t necessarily everlasting nor is it necessarily of general value” and I personally don’t agree on this statement because I think knowledge is infinite and will always be around us. I don’t think there will ever be a day where knowledge won’t continue. Knowledge is everywhere, it is how we take it and how we apply to other experiences in our life that matter.

 SUBJECT HEADING:

MT – Instruction and study