A longtime friend and distinguished psychologist commented on the last post:
“[R]egarding the alarming percentage of people who lack critical thinking, it’s possible that it might be as many as 30 to 40 percent of the population (based on research concerning Jean Piaget’s last stage of cognitive development, aka the stage of formal operational thought). Truly discouraging.”
Her note caused me to consider the relationship of intelligence to the capacity for critical thought. Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests are reportedly designed to discern the composite of the test taker’s language, mathematical, spatial, memory, reasoning and problem solving capabilities and score the subject’s raw intellectual horsepower relative to the same capabilities in others. Until receiving our friend’s comment, my impression had been that one’s capacity for critical thought roughly aligned with one’s IQ. Apparently, it does not, at least in many cases. In what was obviously not a scientifically-schooled search, I found a few references making the point set forth by Dr. Heather A. Brown, an Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, in the article to which a link is provided below. Dr. Brown writes in part:
“Though often confused with intelligence, critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-orientated fashion and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate. Critical thinkers are amiable skeptics. They are flexible thinkers who require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize fallacious attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking means overcoming all kinds of cognitive biases (for instance, hindsight bias or confirmation bias).”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-smart-people-do-foolish-things
Assuming Dr. Piaget’s estimates are a fair reference point for the mental aptitudes of the American citizenry, it would appear tenable that a larger percentage of our citizens than I have earlier suggested lack, rather than refuse to employ, the capacity for critical thought – which presumably makes them ready targets for effective propaganda. Such is, as our friend indicated, truly discouraging. That said, we can perhaps hope that a significant-enough segment of our people who either cannot or do not employ the capacity for critical thought are hard-wired to vote for President Joe Biden. 🙂
McCoy's Noise 