FYS 1068 - Skepticism in the “Information Age”

Hours: 4
The Honors First Year Seminar (FYS) is designed to introduce Honors students to the Integrative Studies program and the Honors program, assist in the development of academic skills and behaviors, and connect them to campus resources to ensure their future success. The earth is flat, vaccines cause autism, and global climate change is a hoax. All of these claims, rejected by mainstream science and refuted by voluminous evidence, are alive and well in the digital realm. But how, if we live in the so-called Information Age, can such obviously wrong claims persist? While it is tempting to dismiss these falsehoods as mere quackery, a critical mind would seek to understand how these ideas gain a foothold, and what they can tell us about the way that we all acquire and communicate knowledge. This course introduces areas of commonly held erroneous belief, cognitive errors that contribute to misinformation, and the importance of testable hypotheses and conclusions supported by data.

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FYS 1068 - Skepticism in the “Information Age”