Data Stories 097 | Calling Bullshit with Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West
In this episode we have Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West, two professors at the University of Washington, who talk about a fantastic new course they have designed called “Calling Bullshit“. The course aims to teach students what bullshit is, how to spot it, and how to deal with it. Needless to say, it’s timely. It’s also gotten a lot of attention lately.
Of course there are plenty of bullshit examples in data analysis and visualization. Carl and Jevin discuss many of them in their course.
On the show we talk about how they developed the course, what bullshit actually is and what distinguishes it from other types of misinformation, how to recognize examples of bullshit, and how to ‘call bullshit’ in an ethical way.
Enjoy this “bullshitty” episode! 
Data Stories is brought to you by Qlik. Are you missing out on meaningful relationships hidden in your data? Unlock the whole story with Qlik Sense through personalized visualizations and dynamic dashboards which you can download for free at qlik.de/datastories.
Links
- Course home page: http://callingbullshit.org
- Video series of the course
- Carl Bergstrom
- Jevin West
- Feynman on “not fooling yourself“
- Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit
- Two case studies of bullshit: Caffeine Free and Foodstamp Fraud
- The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
- How to Spot Fake News
- Brandolini’s Bullshit Asymmetry Principle
Help us fund Data Stories by donating on Patreon! We’re counting on you to switch to a crowdfunding model. Please visit our Patreon page for more details!