https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/UGST4161?type=COREOur modern world is changing rapidly. Advances in information-communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital environments constantly change the way we perceive each other and society. At the same time, unprecedented challenges like the climate emergency, geopolitical extremism and the instability of global structures test the limits of our ability to coordinate and find solutions at a societal scale. In this atmosphere of seemingly endless yet contradicting information and ever more complex and intertwined issues, it is crucial for individuals to practice the critical thinking skills necessary to build arguments based on quantifiable evidence, and to evaluate objections via the scientific method. This course will be a testbed to explore such process in a controlled setting. Students will read publications (analysing complex topics via data analysis and modelling) that led to historical and modern-day controversies (e.g., whether migration is leading to more criminal offenses, whether political polarization is increasing), and participate in student-led, 2hr-long structured discussions about them. Each discussion session will involve publications related to one controversy (in favor and against it), 1 student as 'Presenter', 1 student as 'Opponent', and the rest of the students as 'Reviewers'. The Presenter will first have 20mins to defend one side of the controversy (describe the data, explain the models, argue for their validity). The Opponent will then have 20 mins to raise issues and present the other side (incomplete data, logical fallacies, etc.) After a 20min on-site discussion, all Reviewers will have 15mins to show their summary of the arguments and ask questions of the Presenter and Opponent (who will answer in 10mins). Finally, everyone will lose their roles and participate in a free-form discussion for the remaining 30mins. At the end of the course, every student will have taken the role of Presenter and Opponent at least once (each with a different controversy and set of publications), and participated as Reviewer in the rest of the sessions. In the second part of the course (winter term), students will conduct their own research project and write a report in the end.