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How reasoning helps you discern right from wrong

Sem01 (2024-2025) The Good, The Bad & The Science

This course will give you hands-on tools to improve your thinking and help you understand why reasoning so often goes wrong.

Is screening for breast cancer or prostate cancer a good idea? Is the world becoming a better place or a worse place? How many of the things you believe to be true are false? How many of the things you believe to be false are true? How do you go about answering these questions?

Reasoning skills are at the bedrock of all academic skills, but also in our daily lives they allow us to make sense of and navigate through an information rich and complex world. Although they are highly relevant to all aspects of life, typically these skills are only taught implicitly. In this course these necessary skills receive the attention they deserve. The course covers reasoning in theoretical terms, but the focus lies on putting these skills into practice using academic and daily-life cases.

Course details

  • Practical information

    Academic year
    2024-2025

    Semester
    1

    Period
    1

    Day(s)
    Tuesdays
    One Saturday (5 October)

    Time
    Tuesdays: 18:00 – 21:00
    Saturday: 10:00 – 18:00

    Number of meetings
    8

    Dates of all meetings
    3, 10, 17, 24 September
    1, 5, 8, 15 October

    Location
    Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

    Room
    Tue: NU-4A25
    Sat: NU-5A57

    Credits
    6

    Lecturers

    • Dr. Josjan Zijlmans (course coordinator and lecturer) | Contact: n.djaye@gmail.com
    • Dr. Noah van Dongen (course coordinator and lecturer) | Contact: j.zijlmans@amsterdamumc.nl
  • Learning objectives

    After the course, students will be able to:

    • Dissect (scientific) information output (e.g., publications, news casts) in terms of logical structure and quality of reporting;
    • Recognize logical fallacies, biases, and limitations in one's own work and that of others;
    • Find and assess the quality of (scientific) knowledge;
    • Reason while properly using logic and probability; and
    • Apply reasoning skills in the creation of arguments.
  • Working formats & structure

    Lectures and workgroups

  • Assessment methods

    A series of assignments (75%), a group presentation (25%)

  • Study materials

    • Expert lectures
    • Journal articles
    • Research websites

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