Carl T. Bergstrom (left) and Jevin West, of the U. of Washington, want to teach students how to survive the avalanche of false or misleading data shaken loose by shifts in media, technology, and politics.
Facts and figures are like cow pastures. Unless you squint, you can’t always tell how full of bullshit they are.
Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West, a pair of scientists at the University of Washington, think it’s time to arm students with boots and shovels. They have published the outline of a course, titled “Calling Bullshit,” which would try to teach how to spot bad data and misleading graphs at a time when bending statistics has become a popular art form.
“Pending approval from the administrative powers-that-be at the University of Washington, we hope to offer the seminar in the near future,” they wrote on a website they built for the course. “In the meantime, connoisseurs of bullshit may enjoy the course syllabus, readings, and case studies that we have lovingly curated.”
The Chronicle caught up with Mr. Bergstrom, a biologist, and Mr. West, an information scientist, to talk about their course.
The full interview is here. All I can say is that we need these courses everywhere. On street corners, even.
I notice a poster of a squid over the door – this must be a Cthulhuian plot!
I remember being taught basic principles of media literacy in second grade; the subject was never broached again after that. I conclude from its subsequent absence from my public school education that America’s Owners really, really hate this idea.
There was no mention of this in Catholic school, natch, and none in secular high school. I didn’t get anything at all in regard to critical thinking until college, and while that’s not too late for some, I expect it is for many. Yeah, they really , really hate this idea.
We got critical thinking (a unit in anthropology) in second-year university. Before that, nothing.
Considering accessibility to all kinds of media these days, I think this course would be important to teach the world over and to people of all ages; we can all use a refresher every now and then. Well, most of us.
Plus ca change -- sounds like Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” from just over 20 years back.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/
I remember when I read this thinking “why didn’t I get this in school?”
I have no recollection if there was any critical thinking or baloney / bullshite detection class or lessons pre-University. But there was one related lesson I’ve never forgotten, in a civics class, a lesson on voting: At the start of the class session (of c.30 junior high school students (c.12 year-olds)), we were asked to vote by secret ballot for “our favourite person”. There was no list of candidates, it was all “write-in”.
The vote was duly taken and counted. There was perhaps three “Mom”, and I vaguely recall some celebrity of the time got more than one vote, but otherwise there was a large number of people named, none with more than a single vote. Except for one individual, who no-one had ever heard of (checked by a raising of hands), who got six votes.
The teacher asked how someone no-one seemed to know could win. As I recall, the consensus student opinion was false-counting by the teacher, but this was duly checked by a few students, and nope, the count was correct. How then?
Eventually the teacher revealed what had happened: Before the class he’d stopped six students and asked them to vote for this individual, and to not say he asked them to do so during the class. All six obviously compiled with his request.
The lesson? Paraphrasing the teacher, “An organised minority can defeat a much larger but unorganised majority.”