Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data Driven World

Our world is rife with misinformation. This is a course about misinformation and “calling bullshit” — spotting, dissecting, and publicly refuting — false claims, but also inferences based on quantitative, statistical, and computational analysis of data. Spotting misinformation; causal fallacies; statistical traps; data visualization; big data; interpreting scientific claims; fake news and social media; refutation techniques. Prior math or statistics background unnecessary.

This course is also offered as Info 290 for graduate students.