alt Hacker NewsIt is less 'logic is new'... it more about abstract thinking is a skill that is more useful in societies that have complex social arrangements.
If you are a primitive farmer abstract thinking isn't really useful to you. Everything you deal with in your life, except religion, can almost entirely be dealt with absolutes with little in the way of abstractions.
If it rains at the right time then you can have a good harvest. If the weather is bad then it sucks. If there is animals threatening your crops or herd you need to take steps to deal with them.
There is a lot of logic in dealing with these things. You have to know the seasons, know the stars, know the dirt, etc. You have to understand the life cycle and manipulate the behavior and biology of plants and animals at the right stages in their lives. Things have a logical sequence and there are direct consequences that are predictable from events and your actions.
Where as in modern society you have been conditioned to think in terms of hypothetical and abstractions through being exposed to testing your entire life.
You first need to know how test questions work before you are able to answer them accurately.
For a person who isn't exposed to this then the whole affair of asking hypotheticals and assuming imaginary situations with specific rules that don't actually apply to the present reality is very confusing.
They don't even understand the question. So, of course, they are going to suck at answering them.
And ultimately that is all IQ testing measures.. your ability to take tests.
> They don't even understand the question. So, of course, they are going to suck at answering them.
I agree, but would also say that you should be capable of learning to understand those questions. For example, If you can't speak English, you'll be bad at reading books in English. If you were never taught math, you'll be bad at math. Similarly, If you never learned to reason you'll be bad at solving logic puzzles. It's almost tautological.
However, if a person is incapable of learning to do one of those things, despite the majority of the world being fully capable of doing it, they probably have a cognitive deficit.
> And ultimately that is all IQ testing measures.. your ability to take tests.
I disagree. I think it measures how well you've learned to reason, though I do agree that reasoning is a learned skill for most people.