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Public Health & Skepticism

This course was taught at California State University, Los Angeles during the spring 2013 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

The course will emphasize principles of skeptical inquiry, scientific reasoning, and scientific evidence to prepare students to critically analyze promotional claims made in the health marketplace for products, services, and practices. The course is designed to help students distinguish health-related fact from fiction and to spot health-related schemes, scams, superstitions, sensationalism, fads, fallacies, frauds, bunk, and bunco. Students will engage in critical thinking as they discuss how consumers can get good value for their health-related financial expenditures.

Learning Outcomes

Students should be able to:

  1. Explain why consumer vigilance is important in the health marketplace and summarize the various problems consumers face in the health marketplace.
  2. Describe the scope of deception in the health marketplace, its significance as a population health problem, why people are vulnerable to it, and how consumers can avoid it.
  3. Describe relevant consumer protection laws and agencies and their limitations and how consumers can utilize consumer protection resources.
  4. Apply strategies for consumers to distinguish fact from fiction regarding health products, services, and practices.
  5. Identify trustworthy and untrustworthy sources of consumer health information.
  6. Describe the strengths and limitations of government regulation and industry self-regulation of advertising for health products and services.
  7. Explain considerations for consumer decision-making regarding selection, utilization, and avoidance of health-related products, services, and practitioners.
  8. Distinguish responsible from irresponsible practices, products, and services related to mental health, dental health, major chronic diseases, nutrition, weight control, physical fitness, skin care, aging, care of the dying, care of the bereaved, personal image enhancement, and human sexuality.
  9. Analyze the “complementary and alternative medicine” movement in terms of its common themes, scientific examination of its theories, its impact on the health marketplace, and its impact on the health of the public.
  10. Identify priorities and pitfalls for economical medical self-care and caring for one’s family.

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Science of the Unexplained

This course was taught at Florida State College at Jacksonville during the spring 2013 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

An interdisciplinary study of selected topics in the biological and physical sciences and their impact upon man and society, with the course format including seminar, discussion and projects. Topics will vary…. genetics, tissue culture, space, Malthusian theory, light, sound, and mechanics. This course will provides students with a unique opportunity to examine many common pseudoscientific fallacies, learn how the human brain has evolved to encourage paranormal beliefs, and challenge the students to confront their own biases as they apply the scientific method to their own beliefs through in-class activities, experiments, and research projects.

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The Moral Arc of Science

This course was taught at Chapman University during the spring 2013 semester as an undergraduate course.

Excerpt from Syllabus

This course addresses the evolutionary origins of morality, the developmental psychology of moral emotions, the historical course of moral development throughout the history of civilization, and the forces that have bent the arc of the moral universe toward truth, justice, freedom, and prosperity.

Students will look at how the arc of the moral universe bends toward truth, justice, freedom, and prosperity thanks to science the type of thinking that involves reason, rationality, empiricism, and skepticism. The Scientific Revolution led by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton was so world-changing that thinkers in other fields consciously aimed at revolutionizing the social, political, and economic worlds using the same methods of science. This led to the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, which in turn created the modern secular world of democracies, rights, justice, and liberty.

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Popular Archeology: Myths & Mysteries

This course was taught at the University of Texas at El Paso during the spring 2013 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of critical thinking skills and to encourage them to practice those skills in the context of evaluating popular claims, especially extraordinary claims about topics relevant to anthropology and archeology. It is intended for students who are attracted to the interesting topics identified with anthropology in the popular media, but the level of instruction assumes no prior experience in anthropology. Students will learn about the methods used to interpret the physical traces of behavior, and how to distinguish scientific arguments from pseudoscience and non-science. Lectures, readings and class exercises will examine a variety of non-scientific explanations for past and present events, such as UFOs and ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, pyramid power, Atlantis, creationism and intelligent design, the Book of Mormon, dowsing, climate change denial, and psychic archeology.

Does Bigfoot roam the mountains of Oregon, and do his cousins hang out in the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico? Are they shape-shifters, or do they use wormholes to travel the time-space continuum? Are extraterrestrial aliens like the ones who crashed in Roswell, New Mexico silvers or greens? Is there really an exotic blood-sucking animal called chupacabra killing livestock in the southern U.S. and northern Mexico, or is it just a hairless raccoon? Should we believe Senator James Inhofe when he says that global climate change is a hoax? Is cell phone use harmful to your health? Do the Power Balance bracelets worn by Drew Brees and Kobe Bryant provide any real scientific advantage to athletes? Are modern humans related to ancient prehistoric peoples, or were we created in modern form? Is there reliable evidence to support the claims that psychics can reveal details about the past or make valid predictions about the future? Was planet earth really visited by ancient astronauts, and did they teach Egyptians how to build the pyramids? How can we know the answers to such questions? In fact, how can we know the truth about any claim? We are bombarded by information and claims all the time, and it is vitally important, now more than ever, that we be able to distinguish valid information and warranted conclusions from those that are not. How can we do this, especially when the claims involve events that occurred in the prehistoric past, were not witnessed by humans, or were not documented in written records?

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The Rhetoric of Extraordinary Claims

This course was taught at the California State University, Northridge during the fall 2010 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

One of the characteristics of contemporary American popular discourse is a marked increase in irrationalism. Belief in the paranormal, pseudoscience, and millenialism is perhaps more prevalent than at any other time in the history of Western Civilization. This course seeks to test these beliefs through the application of rhetorical analysis and critical thinking to discourse advancing extraordinary claims.

Learning Goals

Upon successful completion of this course, the students will be able to:

  1. Identify extraordinary claims in popular discourse.
  2. Identify the types of appeals, including forms of reasoning and evidence, used to advance extraordinary claims in popular discourse.
  3. Assess the strength of rhetoric advancing extraordinary claims.
  4. Prepare critical analyses and refutations of rhetoric advancing extraordinary claims.

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Health & Skepticism

This course was taught at California State University, Los Angeles during the spring 2012 semester

Excerpt from Syllabus

An introduction to skeptical inquiry as a foundation for drawing sound conclusions about popular claims made about health-related lifestyle practices, practitioners, facilities, products, services, and information portals. Healthy skepticism emphasizes careful consideration of scientific evidence and knowledge, and human susceptibility to deception and misperception.

Learning Goals

Upon successful completion of this course, the students will be able to:

  • Discuss the major challenges, considerations, and science-based resources for distinguishing fact from fiction regarding information about health products, services, and practices promoted in the health marketplace.
  • Apply key concepts of skeptical inquiry and science-based health care to plan and conduct meaningful descriptive studies concerning the promotion of health products, services, practices, and/or information in the health marketplace.
  • Explain why testimonials regarding the effectiveness of health products, services, and practices are not trustworthy even when they are appealing.
  • Evaluate quackery as a public health problem and efforts to combat quackery.

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(276 kb PDF)

Seminar: Science versus Pseudoscience

This course was taught at the University of Central Oklahoma during the fall 2011 semester

Excerpt from Syllabus

My goal for this course is to have each student leave with increased critical thinking and reasoning skills and the ability to apply those skills in his or her environment. Specifically, this course will teach students how to apply empirical, scientific modes of thinking in explaining the causes of various phenomena, from everyday human behavior to supposedly paranormal events. Students will become skilled in differentiating between scientific and pseudoscientific explanations of things such as psychic abilities, witchcraft, alien abduction, astrology, recovered memories, and the healing properties of various alternative medicines and techniques. In addition, students will come to understand the various ways in which we can be fooled, both by others and by ourselves, thanks to the way the human brain processes information.

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(110 kb PDF)

Science, Skepticism & Weird Behavior

This course was taught at the University of North Texas.

Excerpt from Syllabus

In this class students will utilize scientific critical thinking to examine the causes of various strange phenomena, including alleged paranormal events, magic, superstition, mystery illness, bogus therapies and pseudoscience. The main goal is to teach students how to think about weird things when they encounter them.

Learning Goals

By the end of this course, students should be able to do:

  1. Describe 3 scientific paradigm shifts that have occurred within the last 1000 years and explain why they happened.
  2. Describe the importance of temporal and spatial contiguity in relation to perceiving weird things.
  3. Describe how the environment selects superstitious behavior in organisms. o Describe the role that uncertainty plays in why people believe weird things.
  4. Describe the “law of non-contradiction” and why it must be true.
  5. Describe differences and similarities between logical and physical possibilities.
  6. Describe at least two principles of critical thinking. o Define “knowledge” and how it relates to evidence & belief.
  7. Demonstrate commonsense skepticism by proportioning your belief to the evidence.
  8. Define the “criteria of adequacy” and use them evaluate competing theories.

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Evolution, Economics & the Brain

This course was taught at Claremont Graduate University during the spring 2012 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

Evolution, Economics, and the Brain is a doctoral-level Transdisciplinary Course designed to address large issues in which students employ knowledge and research protocols from many different disciplines to shed new light on specific problems. One of the books assigned—Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature—integrates evolution, history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, and political science to explain a single phenomenon: the decline of violence. It is a model work in transdisciplinary integration.

A transdisciplinary and integrative overview of evolutionary theory, evolutionary economics, and neuroscience (“Evolution, Economics, and the Brain”) that includes a brief history and science of evolutionary theory, along with the evolution-creationism controversy and how it evolved in the context of American history and culture. As well, the application of evolutionary theory will be considered in its integration into psychology, anthropology, ethics, and economics. The course also includes an introduction to behavioral neuroscience and will focus on teaching students how new findings in the brain sciences can inform their work in the social sciences and humanities. For example: How reward acquisition is affected by risk; Why humans are typically risk-averse and when they are not; Hyperbolic discounting of future rewards; How interpersonal trust is built and maintained; How “rational” vs. “irrational” decisions are made; The basis for cooperation and aggression; The reason people punish others; The role of hormones in decisions; The basis for social norms or ethics; The sense of justice; The basis for love and hate and how these effect decisions; War and peace; Human nature; The decline of violence; The humanitarian and rights movements; and more.

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(338 kb PDF)

Knowledge, Value and Rationality

This course was taught at Portland State University.

Excerpt from Syllabus

The fundamental learning objectives of this course are threefold: 1) to empower students to be trustful of reason and to give them hope that they can make better communities and live better lives, 2) to demonstrate that there are better and worse ways of reasoning morally, and that the process one uses to make moral decisions can either contribute to, or alleviate, real life suffering and misery, 3) to teach student not to withhold moral judgment, but how to make better, more discerning moral judgments.

This class has the potential to disabuse students of ideologies and specious reasoning processes that bring students’ beliefs out of lawful alignment with reality. Specifically, it is meant to be both an antidote and a prophylactic to pedagogical constructivism, cultural relativism, radical epistemological subjectivism and faith-based belief systems. As such, this course should be viewed more as a moral and cognitive intervention than as a cannon of information that needs to be disseminated, assimilated and then assessed.

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(231 kb PDF)

Science & Global Change Colloquium

This course was taught at the University of Maryland during the fall 2011 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

What is Science, and how is it distinguished from other aspects of human thought? Physicist Richard Feynman famously said “Science is what we do to keep from lying to ourselves”: words that get to the heart of the scientific enterprise. In an age when the activities of human society and technology can greatly affect Earth’s systems for decades, centuries, and even millennia to come, we must be able to evaluate the merits of ideas as they relate to the actual natural world, independent of our personal, political, or philosophical preconceptions. In this semester, students will learn the basic intellectual “tool kit” of the scientific enterprise. They will discuss how Science differs from other fields of human endeavor, with a particular emphasis on distinguishing scientific ideas from pseudoscientific thinking. Students will also discuss the influence of our understanding (and often misunderstanding) of Science upon contemporary society. In this course we examine real cases of Science gone bad, and the effect (good and bad) of popular portrayals of Science and scientists has on the public. We begin exploring the details of the origin, use, and effects of the energy resources which we use to run our world.

Learning Goals

By the end of the semester, every student should be able to:

  • Accurately employ understanding of logical fallacies and critical thinking skills in evaluating truth claims.
  • Effectively distinguish between scientific and non-scientific approaches to the understanding of the natural world.
  • Identify the major energy resources used in modern society.
  • Write webpages using html code, upload them to a University server, and maintain their personal website.

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Atheism: Understanding Secular Arguments

This course was taught at Portland State University.

Excerpt from Syllabus

This course is a systematic examination and analysis of atheism. It is primarily focused upon understanding contemporary secular arguments regarding religion and faith-based belief systems. It is secondarily focused upon exploring what secularism means for metaphysics, epistemology, morality, politics, aesthetics, etc.

Learning Goals

After successfully completing this course students should be able to:

  • Use critical thinking skills to analyze arguments for God’s existence
  • Examine and evaluate counterarguments
  • Understand secular responses to faith-based morality, epistemology and metaphysics
  • Investigate the role evidence ought to play in belief formation
  • Examine basic logical fallacies and their application
  • Explore writings and lectures of contemporary atheist thinkers
  • Research 1) A specific argument for God’s existence, and 2) The counter to that argument
  • Evaluate, Present and Defend findings to the class
  • Address questions of textual exegesis and interpretation and their relevance to religious doctrine and belief
  • Explore the controversy surrounding “the new atheists”
  • Engage debates from leading religious and secular thinkers regarding God’s existence
  • Explore different faith traditions by visiting local religious services and then sharing your experiences with classmates
  • Examine Christian epistemology and warrant through writings of Christian thinkers
  • Reflect on learning experience and articulate those experiences to peers
  • Develop teamwork skills by working with fellow classmates to analyze complicated epistemological problems
  • Engage controversial ideas and attempt to come to a consensus
  • Empower themselves with the tools to navigate questions about faith, God and the meaning of life

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(252 kb PDF)

Skepticism, Science, & the Paranormal

This course was taught at Griffith University during the spring 2011 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

Paranormal beliefs are important, widespread and yet rarely studied. The analysis of those beliefs is both valuable in itself and useful in developing critical and analytical skills. Since both skepticism and the paranormal are defined in relation to science, and are often strongly influenced by science, some elucidation of the nature of science and of its position in society is required. Modern skepticism the science-inspired study of paranormal claims relates both to science and to the paranormal, and seeks to influence media coverage of these issues.

The course aims to elucidate the nature of the three terms in the title and, through the lectures and the seminars, to enable the students to evaluate paranormal claims in skeptical terms. Both the seminars and the take-home exam encourage students to apply skeptical concepts to the paranormal, and to arrive at their own conclusions. The multiple choice examination encourages broad comprehension of key concepts.

Learning Goals

After successfully completing this course students should be able to:

  1. Understand the nature of skepticism, science and the paranormal and their places in western societies, as shown in an ability to outline their key attributes.
  2. Understand the intellectual tools of modern skepticism, their ethical dimensions and their applicability to paranormal claims, as shown by an ability to outline these and instance their application to specific cases.
  3. Have the ability to apply skeptical criteria to selected paranormal and related claims.
  4. Have the capacity to present the results of analysis in well-structured and logical form.

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(283 kb PDF)

Skepticism & the Scientific Worldview

This course was taught at Francis Marion University during the fall 2010 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the methods of science, and especially its foundational philosophy of scientific skepticism. Students will learn the techniques for detecting pseudoscience; to examine pseudoscientific claims with skeptical thought; and to explore the limits and biases of personal experience. As a class, we discuss the value of a skeptical approach to human experience in general. The class is designed to be reading- and discussion-based. There will be weekly assignments from the texts, web pages, blogs, podcasts, and/or in-class videos.

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(609 kb PDF)

Science versus Pseudoscience

This course was taught at Portland State University.

Excerpt from Syllabus

“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.” —Bertrand Russell

“That which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” —Christopher Hitchens

“Feeling better is not actually being better. Heroin also makes people feel better, but I wouldn’t recommend using heroin.” —James Randi

This course examines basic issues in philosophy of science through an analysis of creation “science,” faith healing, UFO abduction stories, and other pseudoscience. Some of the questions addressed: What distinguishes science from pseudoscience? Why does evidence matter? Must we invoke the supernatural to explain certain aspects of reality?

Learning Goals

By the end of this course, students should have:

  • Developed a healthy skepticism.
  • Formulated beliefs on the basis of reason and evidence.
  • Improved their critical thinking skills.
  • Designed experiments to test (pseudoscientific) claims.
  • Developed tools to discern reality from “makebelieveland”.

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(165 kb PDF)

Critical Thinking: Reason & Evidence

This course was taught at Portland State University.

Excerpt from Syllabus

“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” —Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

“I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute anyone else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute—for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two…” —Socrates in the Gorgias

This class is designed to improve reasoning and critical thinking skills. The focus is on practical/applied methods of reasoning. Students will learn to use tools to think clearly and critically about a wide range of questions and issues.

Learning Goals

By the end of this course, students should have:

  • Developed a healthy skepticism.
  • Improved their critical thinking skills.
  • Formulated beliefs on the basis of reason and evidence.

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(176 kb PDF)

The Scientific Method: Critical & Creative Thinking

This course was taught at Southern Methodist University.

Excerpt from Syllabus

This course will provide students with an understanding of the scientific method sufficient to detect pseudoscience in its many guises: paranormal phenomena, free-energy devices, alternative medicine, intelligent design creationism, and many others. Students will learn to think critically and to question outlandish claims, hype, and outright BS. Students’ writing will improve and they will be able to distinguish credible sources of information from nonsense; students will become intelligent consumers of information. Students should expect to do a lot of reading, writing, and, most of all, thinking.

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(377 kb PDF)

Current Topics in Biology

This course was taught at Davis & Elkins College during the spring 2010 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

This course exposes students to ongoing biological research. Published articles from scientific magazines and peer-reviewed journals will be thoroughly analyzed and discussed. As part of the course, students will be invited to watch selected episodes of Penn & Teller’s Showtime TV series “Bullshit,” which exposes and debunks pseudoscientific claims and paranormal phenomena.

Learning Goals

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Interpret scientific data, as presented in the literature.
  • Determine whether authors’ conclusions are valid, based on the available data.
  • Suggest follow-up studies to address weaknesses in current research.
  • Recognize the difference between science and pseudoscience.

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(194 kb PDF)

Studies in Behavior: Critical Thinking

This course was taught at the University of Findlay during the fall 2011 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

This course examines the key issues associated with the scientific study of critical thinking. Although it’s common to see courses on critical thinking in many domains (e.g. education & philosophy) the scientific examination of what critical thinking is and how it relates to problem solving is exclusively an advanced topic in cognitive science. Cognitive science is concerned with the study of the “thinking mind” and when we talk about “critical thinking” we base our examination on the hypothesis that while it’s true that everyone “thinks” it’s not true that everyone “thinks well.” At the core of this class is the idea that we can all fall prey to bad thinking strategies. In this course, students will learn how to be critical thinkers when dealing with a variety of situations, as well as learn how to tell the difference between science and pseudoscience. Students will focus primarily on how to think about weird situations, but if they can master the skills needed to effectively evaluate strange phenomena (e.g. UFOs) students can easily apply these skills to less bizarre situations (e.g. Will eating “Cheerios” really help lower cholesterol?). By the conclusion of this course students should be able to find answers for themselves (because everyone knows “The Truth Is Out There”) and with good critical thinking skills they will be more likely to find it.

Learning Goals

Upon completion of this course students will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate scientific reading, and writing skills.
  2. Apply the science of critical thinking to unique situations.
  3. Discuss specific critical thinking & problem solving topics in depth.
  4. Understand the biological bases of behavior and mental processes.
  5. Use theories to explain and predict behavior and mental processes.

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(312 kb PDF)

Fantastic Archaeology

This course was taught at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh during the fall 2010 semester.

Excerpt from Syllabus

In its broadest sense, Fantastic Archaeology describes those claims and interpretations about the archaeological record that are outside the orthodox mainstream of the scholarly and professional world of archaeology. This can range from new, as yet untested hypotheses that may become the orthodox interpretations to the outrageous claims that can be easily refuted. Students will examine this entire range of competing, non-orthodox interpretations of the archaeological record.

This course has a much broader subject area than students are likely to encounter in other courses–even in an eclectic field like Anthropology. Students have the opportunity to bring knowledge and expertise acquired in other courses, or their general life experience, to the discussions.

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(630 kb PDF)

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