May 2027 TOK Essay Title 2: Changing Values and the Pursuit of Knowledge

1. Title decoded · 2. Hidden assumptions · 3. Knowledge questions · 4. TOK concept map

5. Three thesis positions · 6. Choosing areas of knowledge · 7. Argument map · 8. Perspectives

9. Ten verified examples, each on its own card · 10. Overused examples

11. Paragraph blueprint · 12. Word budget · 13. Implications bank · 14. Conclusion options · 15. Pitfalls

16. Top-band checklist · 17. Teacher interactions (TK/PPF) · 18. Glossary · 19. Bibliography

Sustained focus on the title

Every paragraph answers how changing values can still guide, not just whether values change or whether a study was ethical.

Sections 1, 5, 14

Linked effectively to areas of knowledge

Your two areas of knowledge are analysed as ways of producing knowledge, and compared directly.

Sections 6, 7

Arguments clear, coherent and effectively supported by specific examples

Each claim rests on a named, dated, real example that is analysed, not just described.

Sections 7, 9, 11

Implications of arguments are considered

You explain what follows if your argument is right, for knowers and for knowledge.

Section 13

Clear awareness and evaluation of different points of view

Other views are weighed, and you say why one is stronger in a given case.

Sections 7, 8

Insightful, convincing, accomplished, lucid

The IB's own list of characteristics for this band. Clarity and originality count.

Sections 2, 9, 15

“If values change over time”

A conditional the title treats as true. Values here can be ethical (consent, dignity, fairness) or epistemic (accuracy, honesty, openness, reproducibility).

Spending the essay proving that values change. The title already grants it.

“how can they, nevertheless”

A “how” question with a built-in tension. You must explain a mechanism, not just agree or disagree.

Answering “yes they can” without saying how.

“continue to guide”

To guide is to direct choices: which questions to ask, which methods are allowed, what counts as good evidence, who benefits.

Confusing “guide” with “determine the answer”. Values steer inquiry; they need not dictate conclusions.

“the pursuit of knowledge”

The process of seeking knowledge (research, collection, publication), not only the finished knowledge.

Writing about how knowledge is used afterwards rather than how it is pursued.

“two areas of knowledge”

Free choice. Pick two that handle values differently.

Choosing two areas that behave the same way, which leaves nothing to compare.

Can something that changes over time still count as a reliable guide to what knowledge we should seek?

Whose values guide the pursuit of knowledge, and what happens when the values of researchers and the researched conflict?

How do ethical and epistemic values each shape the methods that are allowed in producing knowledge?

Should knowledge gained under values we now reject still be used?

Are some values (such as honesty with evidence) necessary for there to be knowledge at all, and therefore less free to change?

Values

Ethics

The central concept. Separate ethical values from epistemic values early, and keep the distinction running.

Responsibility

Ethics

Who is responsible when values change: individual researchers, institutions, or governments? (Examples 1, 2, 9)

Justification

Methods and tools

If values change, what justifies following today's version? Is “we learned from past harm” a good justification?

Evidence

Methods and tools

Epistemic values decide what counts as good evidence. The replication crisis shows those standards shifting (Example 7).

Power

Perspectives

Who gets to set the values that guide research? Communities that were studied have increasingly claimed that power (Examples 3, 4, 5).

Culture

Perspectives

Values differ between cultures as well as over time. Is cross-cultural change different from change over time?

Perspective

Perspectives

Researchers, participants and the public can see the same study very differently (Examples 4, 6).

Truth

Scope

Can changing values change what counts as true, as with the reclassification in Example 8, or only which truths we seek?

Objectivity

Methods and tools

If values guide inquiry, can the results still be objective?

Certainty

Scope

Values are applied under uncertainty; Asilomar paused research because the risks were unknown (Example 1).

Interpretation

Scope

History's reinterpretations show changing values shaping how the same archive is read (Example 9).

Explanation

Scope

Does explaining why values changed (new evidence, protest, harm) make them better guides?

Ethical values change, but a stable core of epistemic values (honesty, openness to scrutiny) keeps guiding. Changing ethical values then correct the direction of research within that frame.

It uses the ethical/epistemic distinction, which most essays miss, and gives a precise answer to “how”.

You must show the epistemic core really is stable. Example 7 suggests even epistemic standards shift.

Change is the guidance. Each revision of values, usually after harm is exposed, corrects the pursuit of knowledge. A value that never changed could not learn.

It turns the title's apparent problem into the answer, which reads as insightful.

It can sound like values only improve. Address cases where new values are contested (Examples 3, 5, 6).

Changing values can guide a community at a given time, but not the pursuit of knowledge as a whole. Today's guidance may be tomorrow's error.

A genuine counter-position that tests the title's assumption, supported by strong examples.

It risks relativism. You still need to explain how any guidance is possible.

Natural sciences + human sciences

Both are shaped by research ethics, but human sciences study people directly, so consent and representation matter more. Examples 1, 2, 4, 7, 8.

Biology, Psychology, Chemistry

Natural sciences + history

Science changes its methods under new values; history changes its interpretations of the same archive. Examples 1, 2, 9.

Biology, History

Human sciences + history

Both study people and are sensitive to power, but one produces new data and the other reinterprets old sources. Examples 4, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Psychology, Global Politics, History

Natural sciences + Indigenous knowledge angle

Tests whether the values guiding science are universal or culturally specific. Examples 3, 4, 5.

Biology, ESS, Social and Cultural Anthropology

Researchers often set the first rules themselves (Example 1).

Self-regulation can protect the profession more than the public. Ask whose interests the rules serve.

They bear the risks and increasingly demand a say (Examples 4, 6).

Communities are not uniform; members may disagree about what their values require.

Challenge the assumption that openness is always a value (Examples 3, 5).

Community control can also restrict useful knowledge. Weigh both effects.

Turn changing values into enforceable rules (Examples 2, 9, 10).

State values can themselves be political. Is legal guidance the same as ethical guidance?

Codify values into guidelines and classifications (Examples 1, 8).

Professional consensus can lag behind or run ahead of public values.

Sees how values looked from inside their own time.

Hindsight can make past values look obviously wrong; that is itself a bias.

1

The Asilomar Conference on recombinant DNA (1975)

Claim

Less common

2

He Jiankui and the gene-edited babies (2018–2019)

Both

Less common

3

FAIR and CARE: open data meets Indigenous data governance (2016, 2019)

Both

Rare

4

The Havasupai blood samples case (1990–2010)

Claim

Less common

5

The turmeric patent and India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (1995–2001)

Both

Rare

6

The HPV vaccine “demonstration projects” in India (2009–2013)

Both

Rare

7

The replication crisis in psychology (2015 onward)

Claim

Less common

8

Homosexuality removed from the DSM (1973)

Both

Less common

9

The Dutch study of violence in Indonesia, 1945–1949 (published 2022)

Claim

Rare

10

The US pause on gain-of-function research (2014–2017)

Both

Rare

Natural sciences

In 1974 leading molecular biologists, led by Paul Berg, called for a voluntary pause on certain experiments that combined DNA from different organisms, because the risks were unknown. In February 1975 about 150 scientists, lawyers and others met at Asilomar in California and agreed that the research could continue under strict containment rules. These became the US National Institutes of Health guidelines in 1976.

Scientists changed their own values (from freedom of inquiry to precaution) before any harm had occurred, and those values then guided decades of research. It shows values guiding the pursuit of knowledge by shaping methods, not by stopping inquiry.

Claim

Ethics, Methods and tools. Concepts: responsibility, values, certainty.

• Why did scientists act before there was evidence of harm? What does that say about values under uncertainty?

• The rules were later relaxed as evidence grew. Is that change a weakness or a strength of value-guided research?

• Critics say Asilomar protected scientists' freedom from outside regulation. Whose values were guiding?

The participants were mostly scientists; the public had little voice. It may show professional self-interest as much as ethics.

Biology students can connect to genetic engineering; students interested in AI may compare calls for pauses in AI research.

• Embryo Project Encyclopedia (Arizona State University)

• Paul Berg, “Asilomar 1975: DNA modification secured”, Nature, 2008

Natural sciences

In November 2018 Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced that twin girls had been born after he used CRISPR to edit their genes as embryos, aiming to make them resistant to HIV. Scientists worldwide condemned it. Chinese authorities halted his work within days, and in December 2019 a court in Shenzhen sentenced him to three years in prison for illegal medical practice.

It shows shared values guiding the whole field by drawing a line one individual crossed. But it also shows that values can fail to guide someone who chooses to ignore them.

Claim and counter-claim

Ethics, Perspectives. Concepts: responsibility, values, power.

• The technique was new, but the reaction was swift. Were the values that condemned him new, or old values applied to a new tool?

• If one person can ignore shared values, in what sense do they “guide” the pursuit of knowledge?

• Did the scandal strengthen the values it violated?

It is an extreme case. Most value change in science is gradual, not a single scandal.

Biology students studying genetics; students interested in global differences in regulation.

• NPR, December 2019

• CBS News, December 2019

Natural and human sciences

In 2016 the FAIR principles asked that research data be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, reflecting the value of openness. In 2019 the Global Indigenous Data Alliance published the CARE principles (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics), drafted in Botswana in 2018, to complement FAIR. They assert that Indigenous peoples should control data about them. A dataset can be fully open under FAIR and still fail CARE.

Two sets of values guide the same research at the same time and can pull in opposite directions. It shows that changing values create tension, not just progress.

Counter-claim; reframe

Perspectives, Ethics. Concepts: values, power, culture.

• Openness has long been a core value of science. What happens when a new value limits it?

• Is CARE a change in values over time, or a recognition of values that always existed but were ignored?

• Can two conflicting sets of values both “guide”? How would a researcher decide?

The principles are guidance, not law. How far they change practice varies by country and institution.

Computer Science and ESS students working with data; links to the optional theme of knowledge and Indigenous societies.

• University of Cambridge Research Data: CARE principles

• Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, 2025

Human and natural sciences

In 1989 the Havasupai Tribe, living in the Grand Canyon, asked Arizona State University researchers for help with high rates of diabetes. Blood samples were collected. Researchers later used them to study schizophrenia, inbreeding and migration, topics the tribe found offensive; the migration research also contradicted the tribe's origin story. A tribal member discovered this in 2003. After a lawsuit, a 2010 settlement included $700,000, an apology and the return of the remaining samples.

Values about consent changed through this case: from “consent to a study” to “consent to each use of my data”. The new values now guide genetic research with communities.

Claim (values correct research)

Ethics, Perspectives. Concepts: responsibility, power, values.

• Was consent for “behavioural and medical disorders” broad enough? What does the answer depend on?

• The migration research may have been scientifically sound. Does that matter if it violated the community's values?

• How did one community's values come to guide research practice more widely?

The settlement did not set a legal precedent, so its influence works through professional values, not law.

Biology and Psychology students; link to consent rules in your own IA if it involves participants.

• Peer-reviewed article on genetic research harms to Indigenous communities (PMC)

• The State Press (ASU), April 2010

Natural sciences and law of knowledge

In 1995 the US Patent Office granted a patent (No. 5,401,504) on using turmeric to heal wounds. India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research challenged it with Sanskrit texts and a 1953 Indian medical journal article, and the patent was revoked in 1997 for lack of novelty. India then built the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (from 2001), translating traditional medical texts into major patent-office languages. Access was long limited to patent offices; in 2022 the government widened it.

The values guiding who may claim knowledge changed: traditional knowledge came to be recognised as prior knowledge. It also shows a tension: protecting knowledge meant restricting access to it.

Claim and counter-claim

Perspectives, Ethics. Concepts: power, culture, justification.

• Why did the US system not recognise knowledge that was centuries old? What values made it invisible?

• The library protects knowledge by limiting access. Does that conflict with the value of open knowledge?

• Is the change a change in values, or a change in who had power to defend their values?

Patent law is about ownership, not discovery. Keep the focus on how values guide which knowledge is recognised.

Strong for students in India; Biology and Chemistry students interested in natural products.

• Indian Patent Office presentation to WIPO

• TKDL: official “About” page

• Christian Science Monitor, 2006

Natural and human sciences

In 2009–10 the US non-profit PATH, with the Indian Council of Medical Research and two state governments, gave HPV vaccines to about 23,000 girls aged 10 to 14 in Khammam (Andhra Pradesh) and Vadodara (Gujarat), many from tribal communities. After seven girls died (investigations found the deaths were not linked to the vaccine), the project was suspended in 2010. A government inquiry found consent problems, including thousands of forms signed by hostel wardens. In 2013 a parliamentary committee issued a highly critical report; PATH disputed its characterisation.

The same project looked like public-health research to its organisers and like a breach of consent to critics. The dispute changed how Indian bodies view trials involving vulnerable groups.

Claim (values correct research); perspectives

Ethics, Perspectives. Concepts: responsibility, power, perspective.

• The project was called an “observational study”, but the inquiry called it a clinical trial. Why does the label matter for which values apply?

• Whose values should guide research on minors: parents, wardens, the state, the researchers?

• Both sides claim to value girls' health. How can shared values lead to opposite judgements?

Facts are contested between the committee and PATH. Present both, and avoid claiming more than the sources show.

Relevant for Indian students; Biology and Global Politics students.

• Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 2013

• BMJ news report, 2013

• PATH's response statement

Human sciences

In August 2015 the Open Science Collaboration, about 270 researchers, published attempts to repeat 100 psychology studies from 2008. 97% of the originals had reported significant results; only 36% of the repeats did, and effects were about half as large. The field responded with new practices: pre-registering hypotheses, “Registered Reports” and sharing data.

It shows epistemic values changing, not just ethical ones. Transparency and replication gained status as values, and they now guide how psychology is done.

Claim (epistemic values change and improve)

Methods and tools. Concepts: evidence, justification, objectivity.

• If the standard for good evidence changed, were the 2008 studies ever “knowledge”?

• What caused the change: new evidence, new incentives, or new values?

• Does this weaken Position A (a stable epistemic core), or show the core correcting itself?

A failed replication does not prove an original finding false; methods and samples differ.

Psychology students can apply this to their own IA's method; Maths students to statistical significance.

• Open Science Framework: Reproducibility Project: Psychology

• LSE Research Online: the Science paper record

Human sciences

The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder from its first diagnostic manual in 1952. After research such as Evelyn Hooker's in the 1950s, and activism including a disguised psychiatrist's speech in 1972, a committee led by Robert Spitzer wrote a new definition of mental disorder based on distress or impairment. In December 1973 the APA's Board of Trustees removed homosexuality from the manual.

Changing social values and new evidence worked together to change a scientific classification, and the new definition of disorder has guided the manual ever since.

Claim and counter-claim

Scope, Perspectives. Concepts: values, truth, evidence.

• Did values change the science, or did evidence finally overcome values that had distorted it?

• The new definition of “disorder” was itself value-laden. Can classification in the human sciences ever be value-free?

• If values change again, could the classification change? What would make that legitimate?

Handle respectfully. The TOK focus is how knowledge claims are made, not a debate about identity.

Psychology students studying abnormal psychology and diagnosis.

• HISTORY.com: the 1973 decision

• Psychology Today, 2023, on the Spitzer committee

• Jack Drescher, “Out of DSM” (paper summary)

History

For decades the official Dutch view, set in 1969, was that its forces had generally behaved correctly in Indonesia's war of independence, with only isolated “excesses”. In 2017, after court cases, the government funded a €6.4 million, four-year study by three Dutch research institutes working with Indonesian researchers. Published in February 2022, it found that extreme violence was systematic, widespread and condoned at every level. The prime minister apologised the same day.

Changed values about colonialism led historians to ask new questions of largely existing records, producing different knowledge. It shows values guiding which questions historians pursue.

Claim (values guide new questions)

Perspectives, Ethics. Concepts: interpretation, power, values.

• Were the facts new, or were historians guided by new values to look at old evidence differently?

• If values drive the questions, is the new conclusion more objective or just a new perspective?

• The research was government-funded. How might that shape the values guiding it?

Some Indonesian and Dutch voices criticised the study's framing. Mention this to show balance.

History students studying decolonisation; students from former colonies may connect to their own national histories.

• DutchNews, February 2022

• NL Times, February 2022

• The Jakarta Post, February 2022

Natural sciences

Gain-of-function experiments can make viruses such as influenza more transmissible, in order to study pandemic risk. After several laboratory biosafety incidents, the US government paused funding for such work on influenza, SARS and MERS viruses on 17 October 2014 and began a review of risks and benefits. In December 2017 a new review framework (P3CO) was issued and the pause was lifted. Policy was revised again in 2024, and the topic became politically charged after COVID-19.

Values (precaution versus the value of knowledge that might prevent pandemics) were weighed, revised and turned into a review process that now guides which experiments are funded. It also shows values being reopened as circumstances change.

Claim and counter-claim

Ethics, Methods and tools. Concepts: responsibility, values, certainty.

• The same research was judged too risky in 2014 and acceptable under review in 2017. Did the values change, or the evidence about risk?

• Who should weigh the risks: scientists, funders, governments or the public?

• How do values guide research when the possible benefit (preventing a pandemic) and the possible harm (causing one) are both uncertain?

The subject is now politically contested, especially around COVID-19 origins. Stick to the documented policy history and avoid claims the sources do not support.

Biology students studying viruses and disease; Global Politics students interested in science policy.

• NIH notice NOT-OD-17-071 (December 2017)

• NIH Director's statement, December 2017

• US Congressional Research Service brief, 2022

Tuskegee study and Belmont Report

The default research-ethics example; it also appears on our free Title 2 page.

Use it only as background for a rarer case, such as Example 4 or 6.

Milgram and the Stanford Prison Experiment

Standard psychology examples on ethics.

Focus on how later re-examinations changed epistemic judgements, not only ethical ones.

Henrietta Lacks

Widely covered in books and films.

Ask whether knowledge gained under past values should still be used today.

Galileo and the Church

Overused for “values versus science”.

Avoid; it is about religious authority more than changing research values.

Slavery was once accepted

Too general; not about the pursuit of knowledge.

Replace with a specific case where changing values changed research.

1. Claim

One arguable sentence that answers the title.

In the natural sciences, group scrutiny makes knowledge more reliable than individual insight.

2. Example

A named, dated, specific case in two or three sentences.

(A named peer-review failure or success, with date and journal.)

3. Analysis

Explain how the example supports the claim. This is where most marks are.

Show which step of the group process caught (or missed) the error, and why an individual could not have.

4. Link to a knowledge question

Name the underlying question about knowledge.

What makes a method of checking claims trustworthy?

5. Evaluation

Weigh the claim against a counter-view or limitation.

But groups can share the same blind spot (a named case of consensus that was wrong).

6. Link back

Return to the title's exact words.

So groups make knowledge more reliable only when the group itself is diverse.

Introduction

150

Separate ethical and epistemic values in one or two sentences; do not write a history of ethics.

First area of knowledge (claim and counter-claim)

550

Long accounts of what happened in a scandal. Two or three sentences, then analysis of the value change.

Second area of knowledge (claim and counter-claim)

550

Background history the examiner already knows. Keep only what your analysis needs.

Conclusion

250

Summarising each paragraph again. Use the space for your judgement and its implications.

Buffer

100

Keep it for linking sentences. The hard limit is 1,600; examiners stop reading at that point.

Restate the ethical/epistemic distinction → show ethical values shifting in both areas → show the epistemic core guiding throughout → address the replication crisis as a test → one implication.

Summarise how each value change corrected the pursuit of knowledge → concede the contested cases → explain why revisability is a strength → one implication.

Show guidance working inside communities and periods → show it failing across them → explain what that means for claims of progress → one implication.

Proving that values change

The title already assumes it. Words spent here are wasted.

State it in one sentence and move to “how”.

Turning the essay into an ethics debate

The IB warns against debating ethical issues instead of the knowledge questions inside them.

Keep asking how the value change affected the pursuit of knowledge.

Only ethical values

Misses half the concept and the strongest counter-claim.

Include epistemic values such as accuracy and transparency.

Hindsight judgements

Calling past researchers “evil” is not analysis.

Ask what values they held and why.

Two areas that behave identically

Leaves nothing to compare.

Choose areas where values work differently (methods versus interpretation).

Listing many scandals

Breadth without depth reads as descriptive.

Three or four examples, analysed fully.

☐ My introduction defines “values”, “guide” and “the pursuit of knowledge” in my own words.

Sustained focus on the title

☐ Every body paragraph ends by linking back to the title's exact words.

Sustained focus on the title

☐ I analyse both of my chosen areas of knowledge in roughly equal depth.

Linked effectively to areas of knowledge

☐ I compare the two areas of knowledge directly in the body, not only in the conclusion.

Linked effectively to areas of knowledge

☐ Each argument has a named, dated, specific example.

Effectively supported by specific examples

☐ I spend more words analysing examples than describing them.

Arguments are clear, coherent

☐ Each counter-claim has its own example and is taken seriously.

Evaluation of different points of view

☐ I say why one view is stronger in a given case, not just that views differ.

Evaluation of different points of view

☐ At least one implication of my argument is developed.

Implications of arguments are considered

☐ I have used TOK concepts to sharpen arguments, not as decoration.

Insightful

☐ The title is copied exactly, with no changes.

IB rule: modified titles lose relevance

☐ The essay is no more than 1,600 words, and all sources are cited.

IB rules on word count and acknowledgement

Two candidate titles, with two possible examples for each.

Which title lets me build the strongest argument with the examples I understand best?

Your thesis position, two claims, two counter-claims, chosen examples, and the knowledge questions you will use.

Have I explained how values guide, not just that they change? Are my two areas genuinely different?

Your full draft, within the word limit, with sources cited.

Where is my analysis thinnest? Is my evaluation convincing?

Values about right and wrong conduct, such as consent, fairness and avoiding harm.

Values about good knowledge-seeking, such as accuracy, honesty with data, openness to criticism and reproducibility.

Agreement to take part in research after being told clearly what it involves and how data will be used.

A voluntary or official pause on an activity.

Repeating a study to see whether the same result is found.

Publishing hypotheses and methods before collecting data, to prevent changing them afterwards.

The right of a people or community to govern data about themselves.

Existing public knowledge that shows an invention is not new.

The view that moral values are only valid relative to a culture or time.

The study of how history has been written and interpreted.

International Baccalaureate Organization. (2020). Theory of knowledge guide (first assessment 2022). IBO.

Official IB document; access through your school.

Embryo Project Encyclopedia. Asilomar Conference (1975). embryo.asu.edu

University reference work.

Berg, P. (2008). Asilomar 1975: DNA modification secured. Nature, 455. nature.com

Peer-reviewed journal; written by an organiser.

NPR. (2019, December 30). Chinese researcher who created gene-edited babies sentenced. npr.org

Public broadcaster.

University of Cambridge Research Data. CARE principles. data.cam.ac.uk

University guidance page.

Native Nations Institute. (2025). CARE directs us home. nni.arizona.edu

Indigenous-led research institute.

Indigenous communities and genetic research harms (PMC article). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Peer-reviewed.

The State Press. (2010). ABOR settles lawsuit with Havasupai tribe. statepress.com

Student newspaper; check against other sources.

Indian Patent Office. Indian TKDL (WIPO presentation). wipo.org

Official government presentation.

TKDL. About TKDL. tkdl.res.in

Official site.

Sarojini, N., and Deepa, V. (2013). Trials and tribulations. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. ijme.in

Peer-reviewed; critical perspective.

PATH. Statement on the cervical cancer demonstration project in India. path.org

The organisation's own defence; read alongside critics.

Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349. osf.io

Peer-reviewed; primary source.

HISTORY.com. The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. history.com

Popular history; good overview.

Drescher, J. Out of DSM: Depathologizing homosexuality. sxpolitics.org

Summary of a scholarly paper.

NIH. (2017, December 19). Notice announcing the removal of the funding pause for gain-of-function research. grants.nih.gov

Official government notice.

DutchNews. (2022, February 17). Dutch used “excessive” violence in Indonesia. dutchnews.nl

News report.

The Jakarta Post. (2022, February 18). Dutch sorry for “extreme violence”. thejakartapost.com

Indonesian newspaper; valuable second perspective.