Watch this university lecture on calling bullshit

Are you frustrated with the volume of unreliable information on the internet?

You're in luck. You can now watch two University of Washington professors complain about bullshit and teach students how to identify it.

Lectures from a course called “Calling Bullshit” are being uploaded to the internet and the first class session is already available on YouTube. The lecture is broken into five separate segments, each between about three and 10 minutes long.

“There is so much bullshit, so much bullshit, everywhere — we’re drowning in it,” opens biology professor Carl Bergstrom.

The course addresses issues like misapplying statistics methods to big data, poor and misleading application of machine learning algorithms, and fake news. The syllabus went viral when it posted.

You can continue to follow along with lectures and other materials at the course website. Here’s the first segment of the first lesson.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via