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The author of the article kindly submitted to open this thread has thought deeply about the title issue of the article and has written a whole book on the subje

The author of the article kindly submitted to open this thread has thought deeply about the title issue of the article and has written a whole book on the subject[1] (and parts of several other books on closely related topics). Other researchers on human intelligence give Keith E. Stanovich, the author of the submitted article, credit for bringing up findings from experimental studies on human thinking that will have be taken into account as cognitive psychology refines its theories on how you and I think. I see several comments in this thread along the lines of "The doesn't ponder" or "the author doesn't make the case" as if this article, restricted by a length limit, is the only writing he has ever produced on the topic. He mentions his longer book in the article. The article submitted today is a brief popular summary of an ongoing research program that the author has thought about as deeply as anyone on earth. [1] http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300164626 http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001646...

unclebucknasty 12y ago
Well, I personally think the current editorialized title here ("When rational thinking is correlated with intelligence the correlation is modest") is off, but the title of the article itself ("Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking that IQ Tests Miss") is more accurate. The article essentially points more to the disparity between IQ test results and rational thinking ability, which is more a critique of IQ testing. However, the title here points to a disparity between intelligence and rational thinking capacity, which is certainly counterintuitive. So, those who didn't note the difference in titles and/or went in with the idea that the title here was the author's premise may have taken issue with the article. The title editorializing was likely purposeful in that many people dismiss IQ tests out-of-hand, so the notion that IQ tests aren't predictive of rational-decision making capacity would have been far less remarkable or click-worthy.

unclebucknasty 12y ago

Well, I personally think the current editorialized title here ("When rational thinking is correlated with intelligence the correlation is modest") is off, but the title of the article itself ("Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking that IQ Tests Miss") is more accurate. The article essentially points more to the disparity between IQ test results and rational thinking ability, which is more a critique of IQ testing. However, the title here points to a disparity between intelligence and rational thinking capacity, which is certainly counterintuitive. So, those who didn't note the difference in titles and/or went in with the idea that the title here was the author's premise may have taken issue with the article. The title editorializing was likely purposeful in that many people dismiss IQ tests out-of-hand, so the notion that IQ tests aren't predictive of rational-decision making capacity would have been far less remarkable or click-worthy.