Scientific Thinking

Semester
Spring
Year offered
2020

Explores science as an approach to reasoning, as a social process, and as coordinated cultural institutions. Both the benefits and the limitations of science are discussed. Established cognitive biases are described, common errors of thought (such as logical fallacies) are introduced, and the ways in which scientific methods work to overcome these problems are explained. Additional topics include: science and the media; science and society; and methods for detecting pseudoscience, hoaxes, and scams.