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

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.

Comments

Umm

[geek]

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.

Re:Umm

[racermd]

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.

Re:Umm

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Umm

[gtall]

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.

Re:Umm

[Anonymous Coward]

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