Search

Catalog description

How do we find what we're looking for? How do we know when we've found it? If we can't tell the future, how do we make choices that impact the rest of our lives, such as finding a life partner, a fulfilling career, or even a good Core course? This course examines the nature and implications of such search processes. Questions addressed include why marital selection (when and whom to marry) has changed so much over time. Why do more women than men now go to college in some parts of the world? What does the data suggest explains these major societal changes? Students will be tasked with obtaining country-level evidence on how changing legislation in different countries is observed to affect societal outcomes. Students will not only learn the nature of causal inference in data, but will better understand how and why society is changing. Additional topics include the search for knowledge (scientific method and causality), navigation (the search for home [and time dilation with GPS]), returns to matching (insect swarms and Tinder) and even shopping at the carpet souk.