Our aim in this course is to teach you to think critically

Calling Bull https://callingbullshit.org/

Bullshit is everywhere, and we've had enough. We want to teach people to detect and defuse bullshit where ever it may arise. Calling Bullshit has been developed by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West to meet what we see as a major need in higher education nationwide.

Sharing as Social Signaling

We are all publishers and many times we share information as a signal of our group membership. Click driven publishing models are facilitating the spread of this fake news.

Stamping Out Fake News

Resources exist for checking and stopping fake news. Remember to question the source of information and to do your best not spread articles you haven’t checked.

Syllabus for Calling Bullshit https://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html

Calling Bullshit has been developed by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West to meet what we see as a major need in higher education nationwide. Our learning objectives are straightforward. After taking the course, you should be able to:

Remain vigilant for bullshit contaminating your information diet.
Recognize said bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it.
Figure out for yourself precisely why a particular bit of bullshit is bullshit.
Provide a statistician or fellow scientist with a technical explanation of why a claim is bullshit.
Provide your crystals-and-homeopathy aunt or casually racist uncle with an accessible and persuasive explanation of why a claim is bullshit.

We will be astonished if these skills do not turn out to be among the most useful and most broadly applicable of those that you acquire during the course of your college education.