80-321 Causation and Social Policy Units: 9-12 Department: Philosophy Prerequisites: 36-201 or 36-207 or 36-217 or 36-220 or 36-225 or 36-247 Cross-listed: 80-621 Related URLs: http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy Policy makers face causal questions. For example, does violence on TV cause violence in life, and if so, what policies can we institute that will actually curb it? Does the death penalty actually deter criminals? Do tough drug laws reduce drug use? This course investigates how social and behavioral scientists establish causal claims, and how policy makers rely on or systematically ignore such science. We examine what causal claims mean and how they connect to statistical data, and we discuss the limits of standard techniques for establishing causal claims. We will consider all of these issues first theoretically, and then in the context of several case studies chosen mostly by the students. Knowledge of social science and/or statistics is not required, but is desirable. Prerequisites: 36-201 or 36-207 or 36-217 or 36-220 or 36-225 or 36-247

Discuss this course  Textbook prices  View FCE Results  View FCE Results Prior to Fall 2004  Check Availability   Popularity index Rank for this semester: #817 Rank in this department: #15   Students also scheduled 80-280 Linguistic Analysis 80-276 Philosophy of Religion 15-251 Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer... 21-366 Topics in Applied Mathematics 80-319 Computability and Learnibility 80-611 Computability and Incompleteness 79-260 Mayan America 80-180 The Nature of Language 79-255 Irish History 79-201 Introduction to Anthropology