University offers course in fight against pseudoscience

"Should people prefer community health centers to a comprehensive Grade A hospital if the data showed the number of the deaths at the latter is much higher than the former?" Lou said the data people collected was just partial, and doesn't show the whole picture — hospitals deal with more fatal conditions, so more deaths can be expected there. Such fallacies in logic are widespread among people, which are untenable but hard to resist.

"To remove prejudices and provide new ways of thinking" is the aim of the course, Lou said. He believes pseudoscience attempts to claim credibility without subjecting itself to the hard intellectual scrutiny real science demands.

Many of students expressed high expectations for the course. "In the era of prevalent fake news, both my classmates and I hope to enhance our judgment through this course," said Jiang Xinyi, an undergraduate at Fudan.

Students who didn't have a chance to attend called for an online course, while some in class decided to quit because it just applies common sense and doesn't help them build critical thinking skills.

Last July, the University of Washington debuted a similar course to help its students draw the line between science and pseudoscience via big data. Lou believes it is necessary to teach such courses, as there are many highly-educated people, including experts and scholars, who harbor misconceptions and lack necessary judgment. This, he said, will have a negative influence on the next generation.