I think you don’t understand the what constitutes flawed logic. If gave a counterexample to the statement: Everyone can learn college algebra. Therefore this statement is not true.
We are then left we needing to modify the statement. What is true is the following: Some people, but not everyone, can learn college algebra.
This is an uncomfortable statement for a lot of people because the inevitable follow up is: Who can and who can’t learn college algebra?. Relatedly, one must confront the idea that not everyone is college material. Maybe too many people are going to college and this is why so many in college are struggling in basic courses. I could go on.
Your post appears naive in that you don’t seem to have thought through the implications of the idea that not everyone can learn college algebra.
>Your post appears naive in that you don’t seem to have thought through the implications of the idea that not everyone can learn college algebra.
It is naive in the sense in that it actively tries to discourage people from trying and learning including the ones who can because they will have this brain virus implanted into their minds that they can't do something because of some unchangeable factor and then turn the mind virus into reality where they are unable to perform which then further tells them that they can't perform because they aren't smart enough. It is basically the equivalent of pulling up the ladder under the pretense of avoiding injury in case someone falls. You can tell anyone that they aren't smart enough and tell them to not do something but only people who try and succeed can disprove them.
So you have this constant cheap troll attack about people talking how you can't do things and then you must put in the expensive effort to disprove them which they can only do in a few disciplines.
> It is naive in the sense in that it actively tries to discourage people from trying and learning including the ones who can because they will have this brain virus implanted into their minds that they can't do something because of some unchangeable factor
No one's discouraging anything. Differences in cognitive abilities should be no more surprising than differences in ability to jump and run, thus resulting in differences in one's ability to be a professional basketball player.
It is simply a fact that most people cannot play in the college level basketball, let alone the NBA. This should not be surprising, nor does this fact discourage people from playing basketball causally for fun or fitness. I'm not sure why this exact same argument would suddenly be discouraging when applied to cognitive activities.
I would say that anybody without an intellectual disability can learn college algebra. There is a lack of motivation and a lack of training that prevents people from succeeding.
> I would say that anybody without an intellectual disability can learn college algebra.
I think that's a stretch, unless you expand the meaning of "intellectual disability". I would agree that considerably more people can succeed than currently do because effort can make up for a lot, but that's a different claim.
People have different working memory capacity, different abilities to reason deductively and considerably more differences on various other metrics of cognitive performance. There are as many dimensions to cognitive performance as there are ways to measure athletic performance, and people fall on very different parts of this spectrum.
With significant effort over time, I can make up for athletic deficiencies and become a pretty good basketball player, but being 5'9" I almost certainly would never be able to make a college basketball team let alone the NBA. I'm not sure why this same logic applied to cognitive abilities is so controversial.
Not at all. In my experience, many people of mediocre intelligence but a background that has sufficient education think they're geniuses. The variability in intelligence achievable by tutoring vastly exceeds the difference in their intelligence vs. that of the average inner-city high school dropout without a disability.
> People have different working memory capacity
Multiple studies have shown how this is easy to train.
> different abilities to reason deductively
This is also very easy to train by example.
> I almost certainly would never be able to make a college basketball team let alone the NBA
Being able to do college algebra isn't equivalent to making the NBA, which means being in the top fraction of a percent in basketball ability. Being able to do college algebra is equivalent to being able to dribble.
> Multiple studies have shown how this is easy to train.
Running ability is also easy to train, that doesn't mean everyone can run a marathon. Some people have flat feet or poorly proportioned limbs unsuited to long-term running. These aren't disabilities preventing them partaking in such activities, but nevertheless limits their potential.
> Being able to do college algebra is equivalent to being able to dribble.
No, it's being able to at least dunk. Again, a common skill but not one everyone can achieve.
> Running ability is also easy to train, that doesn't mean everyone can run a marathon.
Everybody without a disability can run a 5k. High schools used to require students to do a mile run to pass physical education.
> Some people have flat feet or poorly proportioned limbs unsuited to long-term running.
And some people have microencephaly. We're not talking about outliers. We're talking about the vast majority of people.
> No, it's being able to at least dunk.
Look, you're not special for being able to learn college algebra. 95% of Koreans and Singaporeans can do it today, but this wasn't the case 60 years ago. It just requires a basic level of education.
> And some people have microencephaly. We're not talking about outliers. We're talking about the vast majority of people.
No, you specifically said "people without a disability". Unless you're going to expand the meaning of "disability", various permutations within the range of "normal" physical characteristics will impose different limits on athletic abilities, and analogously, the range of cognitive qualities (memory, focus, spatial reasoning, etc.) will do the same for cognitive tasks.
The fact that these qualities can be improved via training doesn't change the basic fact that those limits will be quite different for different people, even within the normal range. We can quibble all day about whether college algebra falls under that category, but this basic fact won't change.
> the range of cognitive qualities (memory, focus, spatial reasoning, etc.) will do the same for cognitive tasks.
And that range is smaller than the difference between your ability to perform cognitive tasks and the average high school dropout's ability to perform those tasks. Education makes a much larger difference.
I disagree. Education boosts IQ scores by 1-5 points [1], where 1 standard deviation from the mean IQ score is +/-15 points. The spread on cognitive abilities is clearly broader than education can cover.
Education has improved the average IQ of multiple East Asian countries by 15 points over two decades. That's an entire standard deviation improvement for the whole population. One-on-one tutoring has been shown to make a two standard deviation difference. That's the difference between median intelligence and genius. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem
Your study is about the effect of an extra year of badly done education on people who drop out of school, which is worth 1 IQ point. That same study shows that the effect of mediocre education on people who don't drop out of school is an increase of 5 IQ points.
You have defined a too narrow definition of "flawed logic" in order to make a counterargument which still doesn't defy the argument the original comment has made. Then you make a baseless assumption in your last sentence that the commenter has not thought through the implications of the idea that not everyone can learn college algebra. Your writing is also honestly a bit difficult to understand so i assume you're learning English.
> Your writing is also honestly a bit difficult to understand so i assume you're learning English.
His argument seemed like a pretty straightforward logical deduction to me. If his argument doesn't refute the claim that everyone can learn college algebra, then you must have some unusual definition for one or more of "everyone", "learn" and "college algebra".
I think you don’t understand what assumption means. I made no assumption in my last sentence. I wrote how your post appears. This is an opinion of mine. This ought to have been clear because I used appears and don’t seem. The reason I phrased things the way I did is precisely because I was not making an assumption. You might be an expert on this topic. I don’t know your background. I was telling you how your post came across to me.
What is funny and ironic is that you falsely accuse me of making a baseless assumption and then in the next sentence explicitly say you are assuming I’m learning English. I think it’s clear that I’m not learning English.
We are then left we needing to modify the statement. What is true is the following: Some people, but not everyone, can learn college algebra.
This is an uncomfortable statement for a lot of people because the inevitable follow up is: Who can and who can’t learn college algebra?. Relatedly, one must confront the idea that not everyone is college material. Maybe too many people are going to college and this is why so many in college are struggling in basic courses. I could go on.
Your post appears naive in that you don’t seem to have thought through the implications of the idea that not everyone can learn college algebra.