THIS SECTION OPEN TO FRESHMEN & SOPHOMORES ONLY

Gregg Easterbrook once said “Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to
anything.”  In this course, we will take an introductory look at the
world of number torturing.  By the end of this course, you should be
able to manipulate numbers properly, and you should be able to tell
when others have been torturing the numbers to make them lie.
Students with math anxiety are particularly welcome in this class.
	Charts, Graphs and Tables blends a course in quantitative
reasoning (some would say number torturing) with an introductory
sociology class.  Some days we will talk more about sociological
tools and concepts, and other days we will focus more on
quantitative reasoning concepts.  We will start off the semester by
turning a sociological eye on ourselves, and examining various
aspects of college: grading, drinking, cheating and so on.  We will
use this to learn how sociologists ask questions, and what the basic
theoretical approaches are.  Then we will move on to a topic that is
only slightly more serious than college:  disaster and death.  In
this section, we will learn how to construct tables and interpret
them.  After that we will look at the relationships between flu
vaccines and paralysis, cholera and pump handles, and asthma and
roaches.  In this third section on health and medicine, we will look
at how sociologists ask and answer more complicated questions about
intervening variables and spurious relationships.  In our final
section, we will revisit the topic of college to determine how
sociologists use graphs to present answers to their questions.
	This subject matter is best learned by doing rather than
reading.  As a result, the reading load for this course is light
(about 10-15 pages per night).  However, the homework load is quite
heavy.  There are 4 assignments (which may be done with a partner)
and 3 exams.  In addition, students work in groups of 4 to design,
administer, analyze and present the results of a survey. This group
project has 5 due dates spread throughout the semester.

Note: This course replaces S100 as the required introductory course
for sociology.