Logic and Scientific Thinking
Course Information
Course Number: SO1001
Course Title: Logic and Scientific Thinking
Period: 1
Duration: 5 weeks (August 10 – September 10, 2026)
Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 8:30 - 10:00 am
Credits: 3
Instructor
Bogdan Popescu
E-Mail: bgpopescu@tec.mx
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Description
This course develops the fundamental skills of critical thinking and logical reasoning. Over five weeks, students learn to reconstruct arguments, detect formal and informal fallacies, see how persuasion and misinformation work, and evaluate evidence and causal claims. The arc runs from what counts as knowledge through argument, validity, and fallacy to rhetoric, misinformation, and causation.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Reconstruct arguments in standard form, including the hidden premises a speaker never states.
- Name the fallacy — formal or informal — and run the three-step diagnosis: name the move, quote the words, say what would decide it.
- Take apart a persuasive message: the three appeals in their honest and counterfeit forms, and where misinformation fails — a false premise, a premise stripped of its scope, or the link.
- Evaluate evidence: correlation vs. causation, rival explanations, samples, polls, and source credibility.
- Apply the full toolkit to a real specimen of public persuasion, working from the speaker’s own words.
Texts and Resources
See the readings and links under the relevant sessions.
Assessment
The final grade has five components:
- Midterm exam — 30%
- Final exam — 30%
- Reading — 20%
- Attendance — 10%
- Participation — 10%
Exams
Both exams are closed-book and individual. They test knowledge of the theories and facts developed across the course and independent critical thinking. The midterm is on Thursday, August 27 and covers Sessions 1–7. The final exam is on Thursday, September 10 and covers Sessions 10–14. Neither exam is cumulative. The midterm is preceded by a practice-and-review session; before the final, Session 14 runs the whole toolkit on one real study, which serves the same purpose in applied form.
Reading
Each session lists its readings as Required or Optional. Required readings are done before the session that assigns them; optional ones are there as reference, and nothing rests on them. Reading completion will be tested in the midterm and the final.
Attendance
Attendance is taken every session and is worth 10% of the final grade. See the Attendance policy below for excused absences and the withdrawal threshold.
Participation
Being present is the floor, not the grade. Participation is assessed on contribution to the work of the session — the exercise sheets, team pages, and in-class diagnoses — where the standard is engagement with the argument on the table, not volume of talk.
Course Content
Fifteen 90-minute sessions over five weeks: twelve lecture sessions, a practice-and-review session before the midterm, and the two exams.
| Week | Date | Session |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mon, Aug 10 | 1 · Types of Knowledge |
| Wed, Aug 12 | 2 · Premises and Conclusions | |
| Thu, Aug 13 | 3 · Empirical, Conceptual, and Normative Claims | |
| 2 | Mon, Aug 17 | 4 · Deduction and Induction |
| Wed, Aug 19 | 5 · Deductive Tools, Validity, and Truth | |
| Thu, Aug 20 | 6 · Formal Fallacies | |
| 3 | Mon, Aug 24 | 7 · Informal Fallacies 1 |
| Wed, Aug 26 | 8 · Midterm Review — Practice Session | |
| Thu, Aug 27 | 9 · Midterm Exam (Sessions 1–7) | |
| 4 | Mon, Aug 31 | 10 · Informal Fallacies 2 |
| Wed, Sep 2 | 11 · Misinformation | |
| Thu, Sep 3 | 12 · Persuasion and Rhetoric | |
| 5 | Mon, Sep 7 | 13 · Correlation, Causation |
| Wed, Sep 9 | 14 · Reading a Study Critically | |
| Thu, Sep 10 | 15 · Final Exam (Sessions 10–14) |
Attendance
Students are required to attend classes following the university’s policies. Students with more than three unexcused absences are assumed to have withdrawn from the course. Students with a justified reason for missing class must send an email to the corresponding instructor before the session.
Academic Integrity
The use of artificial intelligence is permitted within the university’s ethical guidelines and applicable law, under one condition: every submission includes an appendix stating which AI tools were used, for what purpose, and with which prompts. Undisclosed AI use is academic dishonesty. It is the responsibility of students and instructors, from their respective roles, to know and apply the institutional guidelines.
Any act of academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade on the work in question. Cases of academic dishonesty will be reported to the academic administration.
Students with Special Needs
The university does not discriminate based on disability. Students with approved accommodations must inform their instructors at the beginning of the term. Please see the institutional website for the complete policy.