I wonder if this is it - kids making logical inferences to connect ideas in school, and not being given quite enough information to realize there’s a gap there.

I wonder if this is it - kids making logical inferences to connect ideas in school, and not being given quite enough information to realize there’s a gap there. And then they think that that’s ‘what they were taught’, even if no teacher or textbook ever actually joined those dots up. Similarly, I think a lot of people think dinosaur fossils are all dinosaurs who died when they went extinct, because if fossils are dead dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are famous for dying out, those must be connected, right? Whereas of course dinosaurs had actually been dying (and starting on their way to being fossils) for millions of years before the extinction event which… actually stopped them from dying any more.