In order to exercise your critical thinking about a field, you need to know quite a lot about it. When we're thinking critically, we're actually drawing on our long term memory and knowledge of things that we've built up over time. But if we have to spend time getting that basic knowled into the long term store in the first place, it's very hard for us to do both at once. And so i think it goes back to really kind of ar fundamental mistake about how people learn.
Why are some people incurious? Is curiosity a teachable thing? And why, if all knowledge can be googled, is curiosity now the domain of a small elite? Listen as Ian Leslie, author of Curious, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts why curiosity is a critical virtue, why it's now in dangerous decline, and why, when it comes to what sustains long-term fascination, mysteries beat puzzles every time.