>> These people aren’t any less intelligent than the researcher — their minds just work differently. They focus on the practicalities they know rather than hypo

>> These people aren’t any less intelligent than the researcher — their minds just work differently. They focus on the practicalities they know rather than hypothetical possibilities. > That's going to need some explanation. First off, I can see how the question itself is abstract, about a place they have never been, but "no camels" sounds extremely concrete to me. Second, how is ignoring information anything other than a lapse in intelligent thought? The underlying point is valid, but it was not explained well in the article. The point is that "extremely concrete" is always relative to language. For example, in the bible, "40 years" meant something like "a long long time", not 40 literal years. Likewise, a "foot" today does not mean a concrete human foot (although it originated as a particular one). A more annoying example today is that "literally" no longer means "literally" ("I literally died when ..."). To be specific about this example, it is possible that saying "There are no camels in Germany; how many camels are there in city X?" is interpreted in different ways in different languages and cultures. Perhaps "there are no camels" means "camels do not naturally live in that area", but there could be camels brought there artificially, say to be in a zoo. And especially when asking "how many camels are there in city X?", the implication is that specific details about city X matter, for example if it has a zoo or not. The person being asked might try to guess if it has a zoo based on the city size etc. Also worth noting that the question is of the form of a classic logic puzzle. That sort of thing is part of the Western cultural tradition since ancient Greece. But other cultures have other traditions. See also the philosopher Wittgenstein on "following a rule". No sentence in any language is ever so concrete that it cannot be interpreted in many ways.