Why do we think the way we do? What influences us when we make a decision? Do we think what we want? We live exposed to a constant barrage of information, data, and opinions. We are forced to filter and decide at breakneck speed. It's common and understandable to feel overwhelmed. Our minds, subjected to all kinds of pressures and urgent matters, tend to take shortcuts that don't always lead to a good outcome. And technology often doesn't work in our favor... In an engaging and accessible way, using examples from everyday life, we propose a conversation between the sciences and the humanities with the aim of better understanding how we reason, so we can think more effectively and make fewer mistakes. We will reflect on some of the main cognitive biases and their relationship to social and cultural phenomena such as disinformation and fake news. We will also examine emotional biases, the links between what we believe and what we want to believe, elements such as peer pressure and conformity, and other conditioning factors.

This course proposes to analyze the most common errors in our thought processes—those intuitive yet flawed lines of reasoning. Some are related to well-documented cognitive mechanisms, others to logical inconsistencies, and almost all of them—which is what we will dedicate our sessions to—have an explanation.

Program

Mon, January 27: Rational beings? Everyday errors in judgment.

Mon, February 3: Fallacies! Argumentation errors.

Mon, February 10: Science and “critical thinking” in the face of fake news.

Mon, February 17: Data: uses and abuses of statistics, graphs and other confusions.

Mon, February 24: Thinking about the past and imagining the future

Tuition

Enrollment in the modality in-person.