Recently, we were made aware of two examples of college courses in critical thinking and skepticism, and we must admit, we were jealous. If classes like these were available to us during our college days, we would have jumped at the chance to take them.

The first one we came across was on the blog A Gentleman's C, where the proprietor, a faculty member at a state university, says this about his class:

After 10 years of talking about it, last year a colleague and I finally put together a course on critical thinking. (For marketing reasons we call it something else.) We cover the scientific method, pseudoscience, fraud, self-deception, and so forth. Each topic is presented in the context of something fun, like ESP, talking to the dead, quackery, or alien abductions. It is a great course, and the most fun I've ever had standing in front of a classroom.

...

The first day of Critical Thinking is devoted to remedial reality checks. No, there is no scientific evidence that ESP exists. No, the lie detector does not reliably distinguish between liars and truth-tellers. My students are always astonished at these revelations, and many of them don't believe me, at least at first.

Not only does this sound like fun for the students, it also sounds like the teacher is enjoying it immensely. The other class we found out about is taught by Trisha Van Zandt, an associate professor of psychology at Ohio State:

A lot of people have strong beliefs in some pretty extraordinary stuff. It is unfortunate that these beliefs are frequently ill-founded. In this class, we talk about how to evaluate extraordinary claims, and how people come to believe strange things even in the face of disconfirming evidence.

According to the syllabus, the class uses solid books by Michael Shermer and Carl Sagan (just to name a couple), and the topics include differentiating science from pseudoscience, falsifiability, the scientific method, and how neural processes, perceptual illusions, and memory glitches can explain some apparent phenomena. She covers widely held beliefs such as alien encounters, conspiracy theories, the predictions of Nostradamus, and some real nut jobs like the Breatharians, who even most of us had never heard of. She also tackles two of our pet topics — how media validation of utter bullshit can effect the general perception of such phenomena as real, and Gary Schwartz' highly questionable research into medium powers.

Hey, we took some excellent classes in college. One of our members took a class which explored "The Historical Jesus" and how that view differed from the biblical accounts that so many people take for granted. The idea was to think critically about the accounts, examine other texts, and understand competing motives in order to come up with a unique historical perspective on Jesus as a man. It was great fun. To be able able to apply the skills honed in that class to a wider range of "phenomena" in a class such as the ones listed above would have been a wonderful experience.

Perhaps the two of you could compare notes, or even better, perhaps some of your peers at other universities might catch on and start offering similar courses elsewhere. We know that we would have loved to have taken a course like this when we were in college. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to teach about this topic. With the mainstream media all but arrayed against science, reason, and logic, we're glad that there are teachers like you who are willing to go the extra mile.

Hey guys - thanks for noticing me. I'm sorry that you didn't have the opportunity to take a course like mine. (I didn't either, as a matter of fact.) Michael Shermer over at Skeptic maintains a list of syllabi of critical thinking courses from around the U.S. It's interesting to see the departments in which these courses are being offered: psychology, sociology, environmental studies, physics, philosophy... Sometimes I even have hope that a college education will include a required course on the distinction between science and pseudoscience! Someday? Maybe?

I would love to share a beer with Professor Van Zandt and compare notes.

Cheers
AP

Thanks for pointing out Skeptic's list of skeptical syllabi. It's good to see the proliferation of such classes. As far as a required course on science vs. pseudoscience...hey, we can dream!