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University Offers Course To Help Sniff Out and Refute 'Bullshit' (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fighting-back dept.

An anonymous reader shares an Engadget report: There's now a course at the University of Washington, "Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data" that helps you find bad information and show others why it's bad. The instructors, Professors Jevin D. West and Carl T. Bergstrom, jokingly write that "we will be astonished if these skills do not turn out to be among the most useful ... that you acquire during the course of your college education." They add that the intention is not to be political, as "both sides of the aisle have proven themselves facile at creating and spreading bullshit." The intention, then, is to arm students (and the public if they want) with the tools to combat a scourge of misinformation that's aided and abetted by social media.

8 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Umm by geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They already had this. It's called citing your sources and peer review. We also used to have open discussions but those got shut down in favor of safe spaces. Now you can't say shit without some snowflake getting their feelings hurt because, you know, feelings are more important than the truth and stuff.

    1. Re:Umm by wickerprints · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Back when I was in middle and high school, we were taught basic aspects of conducting research, such as differentiating between primary and secondary source materials. We were also taught how to cite sources appropriately, and when our papers were graded, the biggest penalties (short of plagiarism) were for things like failure to cite, or to present opinion as fact.

      Of course, being just lowly teenagers not yet at a university, things like peer review didn't really apply. At the end of the day, our projects were still shitty essays on familiar topics that were not even remotely close to being candidates for publication anywhere except the confines of the classroom. But my point is that these things are skills that can be taught, and are for the most part, generally taught to varying degrees of success, but in this day and age, I am not entirely sure it is enough, because I believe that students frequently fail to make the connection between the critical thinking processes behind academic research, and the critical thinking that should be applied when evaluating issues we encounter in real life.

      And this, I would argue, is how educators should help their students to bridge this gap. Mere access to information is inadequate, because citing your sources and having peer review is not sufficient when one is not able to discern what is reliable and unreliable information. More information is not necessarily more ACCURATE information.

      As for your emotional screed about safe spaces and "snowflakes," I find it quite telling that you chose to go that route, as it suggests an ideological agenda on your part. It certainly does not reflect a dispassionate or objective means to address the difficulty that the general public would appear to have in distinguishing what is credible information from propaganda.

    2. Re:Umm by racermd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Back when I was in school (when the Earth was still cooling) this was called, "Critical Thinking." It wasn't given its own dedicated program as it was intertwined with everything else being taught. It's not just citing sources and peer review, though. It requires one to analyze why someone is saying what they're saying. Put another way, it's critical to question the motivations of the communicator as much as it is to question the veracity of the message, itself. The best bullshitters are able to use cherry-picked, real, verifiable facts to back up their claims. Their messages only fall apart if one questions their motivation and looks for additional data to fill in a larger picture.

      It seems as though this basic skill stopped being taught in primary and secondary schools and replaced with ignorant structures that teach only to standardized tests.

      Basic comprehension and competency isn't really enough. A good education teaches you facts and provides knowledge. A GREAT education teaches you how to teach yourself. Having an open mind and being willing to admit being wrong in the face of new evidence is what separates the latter from the former.

      --
      My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
    3. Re:Umm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Protip: if your "truth" winds up offending lots of people, there's a good chance it's actually just your own shitty opinion. And, y'know, it's fine to have shitty opinions, it's even often fine to spout your shitty opinion out loud, it's just not a good idea to delude yourself into thinking that shitty opinion is "truth".

      Furthermore, if you then feel the need to call people who object to your shitty opinion "snowflakes", there's a good chance that you're actually as sensitive, if not more so, than the people who are telling you where to stick your shitty opinion.

    4. Re:Umm by gtall · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Citing sources is no panacea, the BS artists will only cite each other in circular jerk of stupid citing.

      Whether we like it or not, it comes to chains of trust. Sources such as proper news organizations need to be properly compensated for the money it takes to properly vet stories. And right and left wing-nuts shouldn't have any gravity associated by the rest of us with opinions about "fake" news from those sources they don't like.

      The push for private grade school and high school education over public education will only make the problem worse. Many of those private schools are only interested in providing thought silos so that kids cannot ever get honest opposing views. Hiding behind "religious freedom" becomes merely a term for hiding behind ignorance.

    5. Re:Umm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your daily reminder that the participation trophy is an invention of the boomers who awarded them, not the millennials that received them.

  2. detecting fallacies = detecting bs by MrL0G1C · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Schools should teach all pupils to be able to spot fallacies, and encourage them to castigate those who use them. A world without fallacies would be a world where trump couldn't be president.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  3. People have to *want* to know the truth first by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Part of the problem is that people can't detect BS. The other part is that they don't care. Once people have chosen a side, they tend to ignore information that disproves their assumed position. How do we deal with that problem?