Analytical Thinking is a course covering aspects of research design, interpretation of data, analysis, logic, and thinking processes. It is comprised of three sections: Data Concepts and Analysis, Logic and Critical Reasoning, and Thinking Tools. The section on data concepts and analysis covers aspects of research design, data collection, and basic forms of hypothesis testing and statistical tests are introduced. The logic and critical reasoning section covers material ranging from valid and invalid forms of argument and errors in reasoning to critiques of arguments presented in case studies. The thinking tools section looks at the errors people make in reasoning, decision making, problem solving and learning, and how to avoid these errors. Together, the three course components teach foundational skills necessary for carrying out meaningful academic discussions, arguments, and research studies, which may be applied to any content area of scholarly enquiry.

This unit explores the fundamental properties of human language, with examples from languages spoken in every part of the world. We look at the sounds of human language: how the speech organs make them, and how different they can be across languages. We gain a detailed understanding of English consonants and vowels, and we learn how to transcribe them phonetically. We investigate the ways in which sounds can convey meanings, through the formation of words and sentences in English and many other languages. We see how and why English is different from Japanese, Swahili, German, or even Irish.

An introduction to modern logic: the investigation of the laws of truth. One essential aspect of good reasoning or argumentation is that it is valid: it cannot lead from true premises to a false conclusion. In this unit we learn how to identify and construct valid arguments, using techniques such as truth tables, models and truth trees. Apart from being a great aid to clear thinking about any subject, knowledge of logic is essential for understanding many areas not only of contemporary philosophy, but also linguistics, mathematics and computing.

We examine the major ways of proving things in logic: tableaux (trees), axiomatic proofs, natural deduction and sequent calculus. We learn to construct proofs of each of these kinds and then establish fundamental adequacy results (e.g. soundness and completeness) for each kind of proof system.

An introduction to critical thinking and analysis of argument. By examining arguments drawn from diverse sources, including journalism, advertising, science, medicine, history, economics and politics, we will learn how to distinguish good from bad arguments, and how to construct rationally persuasive arguments of our own. Along the way we will grapple with scepticism, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. The reasoning skills imparted by this unit make it invaluable not only for philosophy students but for every student at the University.

This unit covers computation and data handling, integrating sophisticated use of existing productivity software, e.g. spreadsheets, with the development of custom software using the general-purpose Python language. It will focus on skills directly applicable to data-driven decision-making. Students will see examples from many domains, and be able to write code to automate the common processes of data science, such as data ingestion, format conversion, cleaning, summarization, creation and application of a predictive model.

This unit covers computation and data handling, integrating sophisticated use of existing productivity software, e. g. spreadsheets, with the development of custom software using the general-purpose Python language. It will focus on skills directly applicable to data-driven decision-making. Students will see examples from many domains, and be able to write code to automate the common processes of data science, such as data ingestion, format conversion, cleaning, summarization, creation and application of a predictive model. This unit includes the content of DATA1002, along with additional topics that are more sophisticated, suited for students with high academic achievement.

The persuasive power of the English language emerges from its richness and variation. This unit introduces students to rhetorical theory as a resource for the creative construction of meaning. Students will learn to discover topics, arrange ideas, and analyse the delivery of arguments across a variety of contexts. We examine print, visual media, political debates and engage in virtual exchanges with universities around the world.

This unit of study equips students with some general tools for the close analysis of literary language. Grammatical concepts will be introduced and applied to the description of prose, poetry and drama, and students will explore the changing relations between form and meaning in English from the earliest times up to the present. A number of key strands in contemporary language study will also be presented, including semiotic theory, rhetoric and discourse studies and theorizations of the relationship between texts and subjectivity.

This unit introduces the study of the interrelationship between language and society. It is concerned with phenomena of language change and how that leads to varieties in a language. How are these varieties linked to social differences? What distinguishes male speech from female speech or what are the linguistic styles of different social classes or ethnic groups? What is slang, or jargon, and what distinguishes a casual conversation from an interview?

This unit teaches the fundamentals of academic writing. Frequent, short writing assignments are designed to help students engage with the writing process at the sentence and paragraph levels and and to make appropriate style, grammar, punctuation, and syntax choices. Students will learn how to research a topic, document sources in keeping with academic honesty principles, and edit and revise their own writing, as well as the writing of others. This UoS is appropriate for both native and non-native English speakers and offers a solid foundation for academic writing in any discipline.

What do great poets, preachers and politicians have in common? Using case studies of enduring persuasive texts from the pulpit to the courtroom to the concert hall, this unit introduces students to rhetorical hermeneutics as a method of interpretation. The unit extends their ability to interrogate and think critically about various text types and their affective qualities. It cultivates intensive and effective research and reporting practices, through which students develop discipline-based inquiry questions to effectively discover, invent, produce, and deliver their own arguments.

Science has given us nearly infinite possibilities for controlling life. Scientists probe the origins of life through research with stem cells and embryos. To unlock the secrets of disease, biomedicine conducts cruel experiments on animals. GM crops are presented as the answer to hunger. Organ transplantation is almost routine. The international traffic in human body parts and tissues is thriving. The concept of brain death makes harvesting organs ethically more acceptable. It may also result in fundamental changes in our ideas about life. Science has provided new ways of controlling and manipulating life and death. As a consequence, difficult ethical questions are raised in increasingly complex cultural and social environments. This course will discuss major issues in the ethics of biology and medicine, from gene modification to Dolly the sheep. This unit will be introductory, but a small number of topical issues will be studied in depth. No scientific background beyond Year 10 level will be assumed.

The topics covered by HPSC1000 - Bioethics will be treated in more depth, in a special tutorial set aside for Advanced students.

(This Senior Unit will not be available from 2020) In this unit of study, we will use approaches from the sociology to investigate the place of science in society, the internal dynamics of science, and ethical issues within science and in relation to its application. The key idea in this course is that science is a social activity that can be studied like other forms of social phenomena and behaviour. There are three components to this Unit of Study: an exploration of the motivations of scientists and how they can be described using cognitive and ethical rules; approaches in the social studies of science; and ethical issues that have become prominent because of recent developments in science.

This unit is an introduction to central issues in metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. It opens with general questions about reality, God, personal identity and free will. The middle section of the unit will consider questions about values, goodness and responsibility. The final part is concerned with the question "what is art", the nature of aesthetic judgment and the role of art in our lives.

This unit draws on contemporary moral philosophy to shed light on some of the most pressing practical, ethical questions of our time, including euthanasia, abortion, surrogacy, censorship, animal rights, genetic testing and cloning and environmental ethics. By the end of the unit, students should have a good understanding of these practical ethical issues; and, more crucially, be equipped with the conceptual resources to think through new ethical questions and dilemmas as they arise in their personal and professional lives.

We go beyond the question of which actions are morally right to consider the following: How should we evaluate motives and emotions? Is anyone actually virtuous, or are we all weak-willed, self-deceived confabulators? Are any actions or persons evil? When should we feel guilty or ashamed? Should forgiveness be unconditional? Is morality the product of Darwinian natural selection, or of culture and learning? Is there any objective truth in morality, or are moral claims merely subjective or culturally relative?

Why does America have so much influence globally? What is the nature of this influence? And what are the consequences of this influence? What are the nature and consequences of the influence of the rest of the world on America? Why given America's global influence, and globalisation in general, does America remain such an insular society? This unit takes an interdisciplinary approach to these questions with a focus primarily on the United States in the 21st century.

Anthropology explores and explains cultural difference while affirming the unity of humankind. It provides accounts of cultural specificity that illuminate the world today. Lectures will address some examples of cultural difference from the present and the past. These examples will introduce modern Anthropology, the method of ethnography, and its related forms of social and cultural analysis.

Anthropology's long-term ethnographic method, within a specific cultural setting, allows for a particularly intimate understanding of people's experiences of the social worlds they inhabit. This unit shows the importance of this experiential intimacy for understanding some of the key issues associated with globalisation: the culturally diverse forms of global capitalism, the transnational communities emanating from global population movements, the transformations of colonial and post-colonial cultures, the rise of global movements and the corresponding transformation of Western nationalism.

The 1949 speech by US president, Harry Truman, declared his country's commitment to the 'development' of the Third World, and began what many consider to be development as an institutional approach to non-Western societies. Anthropology, well established in its study of non-Western societies, was able to offer a rich ethnographic insight into the developing world. Combining ethnographic detail with social science concepts, this unit covers topics such as food crisis, land, environment, cities, fair trade, migration, nation-state, NGOs, poverty and informal economy.

Art shapes our cities, streets, galleries, phones and minds. It is now made with every conceivable material, and sometimes none at all. It shocks, challenges, soothes, entertains, engrosses and overwhelms us. This unit charts the history of Modern and Contemporary Art across the world, as it is shaped by and shapes society, politics and environment. It shows current concerns in art , with materials, landscape, self-image, politics, and the body are grounded in a century of global experiment

This is the gateway unit of study for Human Geography, Physical Geography, Environmental Studies and Geology. Its objective is to introduce the big questions relating to the origins and current state of the planet: climate change, environment, landscape formation, and the growth of the human population. During the semester you will be introduced to knowledge, theories and debates about how the world's physical and human systems operate. The first module investigates the evolution of the planet through geological time, with a focus on major Earth systems such as plate tectonics and mantle convection and their interaction with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and human civilisations. The second module presents Earth as an evolving and dynamic planet, investigating global environmental change, addressing climate variability and human impacts on the natural environment and the rate at which these changes occur and how they have the potential to dramatically affect the way we live. Finally, the third module, focuses on human-induced challenges to Earth's future. This part of the unit critically analyses the relationships between people and their environments, with central consideration to debates on population change, resource use and the policy contexts of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Advanced students will complete the same core lecture material as for GEOS1001, but will be required to carry out more challenging practical assignments.

This unit of study provides a geographical perspective on the ways in which people interact with each other and the physical world, focussing on the processes that generate spatial variation and difference. Students will consider the development and characteristics of natural environments across the globe, and will explore how these environments both constrain, and are influenced by, humans. In the process, they will learn about the biophysical, political, economic, cultural and urban geographies that shape contemporary global society. Each of these themes will be discussed with reference to key examples, in order to understand the ways in which the various processes (both physical and human) interact. The unit of study is designed to attract and interest students who wish to pursue geography as a major within their undergraduate degree, but also has relevance to students who wish to learn how to think geographically about the contemporary world.

Advanced students will complete the same core lecture material as for GEOS1002, but will be required to carry out more challenging practical assignments.

This unit provides students with a foundational understanding in two key areas of international relations. First students will gain an understanding of the history of the international political and economic system, and the forces, events, and processes that have shaped the contemporary international system. Second, students will be introduced to the main theories of international relations and explore how these help explain the forces that shape international relations.

This unit introduces students to Indigenous Australia in a stimulating, in-depth study of traditional and contemporary forms of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural expression. Ranging from the Dreaming and ancient knowledges, ceremony and lore, to the lives and societies of Indigenous peoples today, students learn in areas such Aboriginal kinship, language, story and art, Indigenous agriculture, aquaculture and astronomy, and contemporary Indigenous cultures and cultural currents.

Medical anthropology is a comparative and ethnographic response to the global influence of biomedicine within diverse cultural worlds. This unit will examine major theoretical approaches, their respective critiques, and the methods that underpin them. Concepts such as 'health/illness', 'disease', 'well-being', 'life-death', and 'body/mind' will be located in a variety of cultural contexts and their implications for different approaches to diagnosis and treatment considered. The unit will include culturally located case studies of major contemporary health concerns, such as AIDS.

(This Intermediate Unit will not be available from 2020) What distinguishes creationism from evolutionary theory, or astrology from astronomy? Can we have good reason to believe that our current scientific theories represent the world "as it really is"? This course critically examines the most important attempts to describe the scientific method, to draw a line dividing science from non-science, and to justify the high status generally accorded to scientific knowledge. Views studied include Karl Popper's idea that scientific theories are falsifiable in principle, Thomas Kuhn's proposal that science consists of a series of paradigms separated by abrupt scientific revolutions, and claims by Feyerabend and others that there are no objective criteria by which science can be distinguished from pseudo-science. This unit of study also explores contemporary theories of evidence and explanation, the role of social values in science, sociological approaches to understanding science, and the nature of scientific change.

The topics covered in 'What is This Thing Called Science?' will be covered in more depth, in a special tutorial set aside for advanced students.

Modern culture is a culture of science and modern science is the outcome of a historical process of 2,500 years. In this course we investigate how traditional knowledge gradually acquired the characteristics of 'science': the social structure, contents, values and methods we are familiar with. We will look at some primary chapters of this process, from antiquity to the end of the seventeenth century, and try to understand their implications to understanding contemporary science in its culture. Special emphasis will be given to the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, which is often described as the most important period in the history of science and as one of the most vital stages in human intellectual history.

The topics covered in 'The Birth of Modern Science' will be covered in more depth, in a special tutorial set aside for advanced students.

The Internet is at the heart of major digital transformations in industry, society and culture. This unit introduces key skills in analysis and critique of the technologies involved in networked change, exploring internet imaginaries, histories and emerging phenomena.

How we eat, sleep, talk, love, shop, work, play, learn and die are all shaped by digital media. Everyday digital media focuses on the transformation of self and society through the digital mediation of everyday practices. How do we organise our social lives and engage creatively in online realms? What are the opportunities and risks of sharing and self-presentation in networked publics? How are communities reconfigured in a digital context? This unit introduces theories of digital culture and identity and applies them to our everyday experiences and interactions with social media, participatory culture, locative media, computer games, virtual reality, smart homes and connected cities.

This unit is an essential starting point for software developers, IT consultants, and computer scientists to build their understanding of principle computer operation. Students will obtain knowledge and skills with procedural programming. Crucial concepts include defining data types, control flow, iteration, functions, recursion, the model of addressable memory. Students will be able to reinterpret a general problem into a computer problem, and use their understanding of the computer model to develop source code. This unit trains students with software development process, including skills of testing and debugging. It is a prerequisite for more advanced programming languages, systems programming, computer security and high performance computing.

Digital media and communications landscapes teaches students to map and analyse media policy, industry change, and user engagement. Within this framework, it explores concepts of labour and practical responses to workplace dynamics. Students will review their digital media footprint and develop professional branding strategies.