"Why Johnny Can't Reason"

**~~Atheist Peace~~** · August 22, 2007, 03:39 PM

http://www.brainstages.net/4thr.html

I found this while looking around on wikipedia. It's quite interesting to me, but I'm not really qualified to evaluate it in any meaningful way. Additionally, I'm not sure it's clear to me what each of these different categories means; it seems to me that what it implies simply can't be accurate. Surely more than one third of adults can perform the "abstract" thinking described here? Perhaps this article just doesn't give enough detail for me to see exactly what they mean, I don't know. I also wonder how exactly these theories relate to intelligence and other related things.

What do you make of it?

**Big War Bird** · August 22, 2007, 05:25 PM

I would not be suprised that 1/3 is correct. Most people are dolts. You can take all the evidence you want from the mudpit. About 2/3 of the opinions placed there are devoid of critical thinking. And they consistantly come from the same people.

**Lunar4** · August 22, 2007, 07:44 PM

Teachers surely know that there is a spectrum of ability levels of the children in their classes, but they don't know how to handle it. If teachers were really aware of the data in the table, they would know that significant modifications of their instructional level are needed for these non-ready children. That still wouldn't tell them what to do.

Alright, well if this is the problem perhaps students should be taught in groups according to their Reasoning ability and not by age group

**~~Atheist Peace~~** · August 22, 2007, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by Big War Bird

I would not be suprised that 1/3 is correct. Most people are dolts. You can take all the evidence you want from the mudpit. About 2/3 of the opinions placed there are devoid of critical thinking. And they consistantly come from the same people.

Well, if we assume that IQ in some way accurately measures intelligence and that this "critical thinking" ability roughly correlates with intelligence, it's logical to assume that only those who fall in approximately the 67th percentile or above in IQ are capable of this "critical thinking," and that a person of average intelligence (50th percentile, of course) is not capable of any of this so-called abstract reasoning.

This seems unlikely to me. Perhaps the article doesn't clearly explain this type of reasoning, so that the brief explanation it does give can be misconstrued as an explanation of more ordinary abilities than it really explains. Or maybe the average person really is incapable of critical thinking.

**boofhead** · August 23, 2007, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Atheist Peace

Well, if we assume that IQ in some way accurately measures intelligence and that this "critical thinking" ability roughly correlates with intelligence, it's logical to assume that only those who fall in approximately the 67th percentile or above in IQ are capable of this "critical thinking," and that a person of average intelligence (50th percentile, of course) is not capable of any of this so-called abstract reasoning.

This seems unlikely to me. Perhaps the article doesn't clearly explain this type of reasoning, so that the brief explanation it does give can be misconstrued as an explanation of more ordinary abilities than it really explains. Or maybe the average person really is incapable of critical thinking.

The moment you mention IQ I laugh......sorry

**RZZZA** · August 22, 2007, 08:23 PM

oh yeah, I know at least one person in my life is incapable of connecting analyticial and abstract thought.

Normal people should have a bridge between the two.

**Da Skinna** · August 22, 2007, 11:33 PM

Reason isn't a universal language, sometimes it's necessary to learn to speak other languages in order to speak reason.

Meaning you have to be able to reason on the same level that others reason on to be able to convey the same message that's universal in all languages and planes of reason.

Or have a bigger gun. Whatever.

**~~Ummon~~** · August 23, 2007, 10:49 AM

Besides, there is a level beyond that of reason: which is "metaphoric thought with reason preserved". It is the language of intuition and creativity, whereas "metaphoric thought without reason preserved" is the language of shamans and madmen.

**Blau&Gruen** · August 23, 2007, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Ummon

the language of shamans and madmen.

Very funny expression!

**ajm317** · August 23, 2007, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Atheist Peace

http://www.brainstages.net/4thr.html

I found this while looking around on wikipedia. It's quite interesting to me, but I'm not really qualified to evaluate it in any meaningful way. Additionally, I'm not sure it's clear to me what each of these different categories means; it seems to me that what it implies simply can't be accurate. Surely more than one third of adults can perform the "abstract" thinking described here? Perhaps this article just doesn't give enough detail for me to see exactly what they mean, I don't know. I also wonder how exactly these theories relate to intelligence and other related things.

What do you make of it?

As much as it boggles my mind that 2/3's of the adult population is incapable of "abstract" thinking, my experience as a TA teaching physics leads me to believe the number is probably not that far off the mark. The students in my classes frequently demonstrated a complete inability to even ATTEMPT any problem that was not simply a case of finding a highlighted equation from their text and plugging in numbers, much less solve them.

If I had a penny for every time I heard "I think the professor made a mistake, we don't have enough information..."

If the students had not seen an example which was identical to the problem before them they simply gave up.

That said I think their divisions are a bit arbitrary. Dividing people into 3 groups of thinkers is a bit absurd I think. People at differents points of a learning process in a given subject think about things differently. Initially you simply pattern match, hopefully you eventually move beyond that.

**~~Ummon~~** · August 23, 2007, 12:45 PM

@ Ajm: Piaget's distinction is always criticized for being rigid. Indeed, it is, as any concept derived from it. Nonetheless the model has many interesting pluses, and the man was a pioneer.

**Simetrical** · August 23, 2007, 06:28 PM

I would be very interested in seeing the test questions used. It's hard to say much about this without them. I think that many people who would be widely regarded as pretty smart would have more difficulty unraveling complicated logical puzzles than someone who might be less "smart" overall but better at logic. This could just be a statement that most people aren't good at math/science-type stuff.

Originally Posted by Atheist Peace

Well, if we assume that IQ in some way accurately measures intelligence and that this "critical thinking" ability roughly correlates with intelligence, it's logical to assume that only those who fall in approximately the 67th percentile or above in IQ are capable of this "critical thinking," and that a person of average intelligence (50th percentile, of course) is not capable of any of this so-called abstract reasoning.

Well, how many people do miserably at things like math? A lot of people never get it. One thing that's clear from this test is that "abstract logic" as they define it is not necessary for most people to do perfectly well in life.

Incidentally, IQ is scored on a distribution basis already, so you don't need to use percentiles. If IQ corresponds to their reasoning test (which I don't have good reason to believe it will, at least not especially strongly) then this would be equivalent to saying that no one with an IQ of under 115 can reason abstractly, and no one with an IQ under 75-or-80ish can reason even concretely.