Topics and lesson plans

These are all the lesson plans used in the full fourteen week version of the course that's run at UC Berkeley.

Week 1: The Purpose and Limitations of Science

• 1.1 Introduction and When Is Science Relevant
• 1.2 Shared Reality and Modeling

Week 2: What we can Measure

• 2.1 Senses and Instrumentation
• 2.2 Systematic and Statistical Uncertainty

Week 3: Statements of Uncertainty

• 3.1 Probabilistic Reasoning
• 3.2 Calibration of Credence Levels

Week 4: Dealing with Noise

• 4.1 Signal and Noise
• 4.2 Finding Patterns in Random Noise

Week 5: Trade-offs and Progress

• 5.1 False Positives and Negatives
• 5.2 Scientific Optimism

Week 6: Establishing Causation

• 6.1 Correlation and Causation
• 6.2 Hill's Criteria

Week 7: Types and Consequences of Causation

• 7.1 Causation, Blame, and Policy
• 7.2 Emergent Phenomena

Week 8: Describing and Simplifying Reality

• 8.1 Orders of Understanding
• 8.2 Fermi Problems

Week 9: Heuristics and Biases

• 9.1 Heuristics
• 9.2 Biases

Week 10: Catching and Countering Biases

• 10.1 Confirmation Bias
• 10.2 Blinding

Week 11: Science Gone Wrong

• 11.1 Pathological Science
• 11.2 When Is Science Suspect

Week 12: Group Evaluations

• 12.1 Wisdom of Crowds and Herd Thinking
• 12.2 Grill the Guest

Week 13: Better Group Decision Making

• 13.1 Denver Bullet Study
• 13.2 Deliberative Polling

Week 14: The Outlook and Potential of Science

• 14.1 Scenario Planning
• 14.2 Wrap Up