Critical thinking, expertise and intelligence
March 31, 2026
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily
AI Analysis: Glittering Generalities
Peter Ellerton, The Education Contrarian, Mar 31, 2026 I just want to mention this article because I think these concepts are about to enter a period of considerable redefinition. What made me think this way was author Peter Ellerton's assertion that intelligence contains almost no content knowledge while I distinctly recall intelligence tests I have taken asking for very specific content knowledge (including in one memorable example the definition of 'ookpik').
Meanwhile, Ellerton reports, critical thinking contains a substantial body of content knowledge, which I'm pretty sure isn't true at all. Finally, he writes that expertise develops primarily through deliberate practice, which is partially true, though expertise is also (partially) describable as one's position in a community. For my own part, I think in the future we'll see 'intelligence' defined as 'natural capacity for pattern recognition' while critical thinking is based on mastery of a particular type (of sets of) pattern recognition, while expertise references consonance with one's own pattern recognition with others in a specific domain. Or something like that. Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
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Technique: Glittering Generalities
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