That was my thought, too, but yeah. Occam’s Razor, our government is just run by really stupid people.

That’s more an argument in semantics. Developmental psych actually has this as a brain development stage, with the later stages being about critical thinking even if the earlier phase doesn’t seem so. Experiments were done where children of various ages were tested on benchmarks such as volume and kids under a certain age failed almost universally (I forget the age, something like 5 or 6) in the same way that infants lack object permanence. Later, at 9 and around 13 (?) the same framework argues that the brain gets basic and advanced problem solving and critical thinking, although even that theory admits plenty of people skip that last milestone.

Your point is more a common logical (sensory?) fallacy that plenty of adults fall into, but isn’t necessarily the same thing. At least, I think it is, I’m a bit busy right now to check and it’s bad enough I’m typing this out instead of taking care of my own toddler, lol.

I want to point out that, especially after No Child Left Behind, we’ve actively worked to teach-to-the-test in public schools. That was a bipartisan compromise to make education “accountable” that ultimately worsened education. Obama’s DoE helped, slightly, in 2015 adjustments but it’s still no where near where it should be and made only worse by a push to get more charters and affordable private schools that don’t understand pedagogy.

That is to say, uneducated isn’t quite right as It’s not a lack of education, but more of a misguided pedagogy that prioritizes rote memorization over deductive reasoning and critical thinking. It’s not a lack of trying, but an avoidence of evidence based approaches.

Critical thinking (or at least reasoning) is everywhere, even when people drive or do chores, an ounce of thoughtfulness at the very least makes a difference.

And yes, warm soda. Lol

You know, this should only trick young kids as they genuinely believe taller = more. The fact that it probably tricks a ton of adults just suggests their critical thinking never made it past adolescence and we should be very concerned by that.