The idea said:
A proposal has to be conceived of before it can be evaluated. I don't see why the fact that I haven't conceived of something would suggest that I am incapable of evaluating it.
Also, since we are talking about testing human beings, to evaluate the quality of a test of logic skills would probably require actual experiments to be performed. A person hasn't yet performed some particular experiments--how does that suggest that the person may not have the requisite logic skills?
Finally, I would point out that there is a difference between a general approach for a test of logic skills and a particular test based on that approach. (Analogy: The Hindenburg disaster doesn't indicate that all lighter-than-air gases are unsafe for getting lift. We have to distinguish between hydrogen and helium.)
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Your response is too unclear for me to comment on, perhaps -- in all fairness -- because my comment to which you respond was equally or even more unclear.
Let me start again from scratch. I think it's difficult to test a person fairly and accurately with a smattering of specific tests chosen haphazardly, even if the tests are many and are individually sound.
Therefore the tests would have to be chosen very carefully so that they reflect the logic overall, or they have to test basic, generic skills. Either way, the tester needs a good idea of the fundamentals, I would guess.
But to test a person's fundamental skills at logic, the tester needs to have a clear and correct idea on what fundamental logic skill actually is.
Although I'm not a professional tester or logician, it seems to me that a fundamental test could be based on the conditional logic of the if/then type.
It seems no exaggeration to say that if facts A and B are true, then logically C is also true. As in if 1+1, then 2.
And if we know that 1+1 is the evidence, then we can know that 2 is the answer, if we know how to infer validly. And this is the mental process behind all of our true knowledge. How can it not be?
Furthermore, not just the conclusions are attainable by this basic kind of inference, but even the observed facts are put together this way by assembling their
atomic" parts into a whole bite-sized fact. Think, for example, about the observational bits by which we identify a cat or a dog or Stan Laurel as an actual observed fact.
All fallacies of argument and logic are merely variations on the violation of basic if/then logic.
And a simple test for if/then skills is to examine the opinions of assertions about facts that people make and determine if they violate this logic either by asserting unproven facts or unproven inferences from the facts.
The most common, pandemic violation is to arrive at certain conclusions from uncertain or inconclusive facts.
Of course your views on what basic logic is may be different, but my point is that you may need to have a clear idea of your views in order to carry out tests useful to you.
