30 FOR TOK: IB CHEMISTRY: THE THINKING BEHIND SUBJECT

Chemistry uses models it knows to be false to produce knowledge that is reliable and powerful. Resonance structures do not exist. The ideal gas is a fiction. And yet chemistry works. This book asks why, and what that means for the nature of scientific knowledge. 30 For 30 TOK: IB Chemistry is the fifteenth book in the 30 For 30 TOK series, which pairs thirty IB diploma subjects with thirty searching questions about the nature of the knowledge it produces. This volume focuses on the IB Chemistry course, asking questions about modelling, representation, the history of chemical discovery, and the ethical dimensions of a science that underpins modern medicine, agriculture, and industry. From the evolution of atomic models to the question of what it means for a bond to exist, from the role of imagination in chemical discovery to the ethics of CFCs and thalidomide, the thirty questions in this book press on what chemical knowledge is and how it is justified. Sample responses model what careful, philosophically grounded engagement with chemistry and its epistemological foundations looks like in practice. Designed for IB Chemistry students, teachers, TOK educators, and anyone curious about the epistemic foundations of the science that describes and transforms the material world.

Pages: 226, Paperback, Independently published