Honors Science Seminar: Separating Science from Pseudoscience

Catalog description

This course addresses issues of evaluating, detecting, and communicating about pseudoscience that scientists are likely to encounter in their careers. For example, some people use scientific evidence to promote their view that Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and a heavily-guarded 150-foot-tall wall of ice called Antarctica around the rim. However, more and better scientific evidence is available to suggest that the Earth is approximately spherical. How does one distinguish between pseudoscience (Flat Earth) and science (Approximately Spherical Earth), and how do we make cogent and persuasive arguments to skeptics of established scientific conclusions?