Talk:General knowledge/Archive 1

Appropriate for Wikipedia?
I've tidied this article up slightly, but I'm still not sure it's really an appropriate topic, given the difficulty of defining general knowledge clearly. Maybe it should be deleted? Jon Rob 12:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There is an article about it in Nationalencyklopedin. Then Wikipedia should be able to have it.--212.247.27.111 18:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not delete it - keep it! At last, typing in "general knowledge" will no longer redirect to "Common knowledge"  - the terms are not synonyms!ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:31, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Well first of all the good news - I wish to congratulate the person who made sure that "general knowledge" no longer directs to "common knowledge". Now for the bad news. Why are their references to intelligence in the article? General knowledge is not a synonym for intelligence -  an intelligence test that were really a test of knowledge would not be a valid test. This seems to be one of the things Steven Jay Gould was getting at in his book "The Mismeasure of Man".ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Relationship between General knowledge and intelligence
Regarding intelligence, as explained in the article, there is research evidence that general knowledge is related to intelligence, specifically semantic memory retrieval ability. The article does not say it is a 'synonym' for intelligence, but that it is related to intelligence, particularly crystallised intelligence. It is not the only component of crystallised intlligence, but still appears to be an important one. Steven Jay Gould might have disputed this, but there is empirical evidence to support a relationship between acquired knowledge and intelligence. If you wish to note that there is controversy about the proper definition of intelligence, that's fine, but I think it important to note that researchers in the field do consider that there is a connection. Smcg8374 03:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Reasons for Deletion of "Allgemeinbildung"
I really don't see what this concept of "Allgemeinbildung" as the editor defines it here has to do with general knowledge at all. The lead sentence of the article version I am changing started off by defining 'general knowledge' as 'Allgemeinbildung', and defines the latter in terms of a highly specialised concept concerning a philosophy of self-development in Weimar Germany. Although the German term 'Allgemeinbildung' translates as 'general knowledge' or 'general education' it seems not at all clear how this relates to the concept of general knowledge as the term is customarily understood in the English language, so I don't think this is an appropriate way to start the article. No reference is cited in the opening paragraph. The first reference cited in the section headed "Allgemeinbildung", 'The future of market transition' concerns economic changes resulting from the collapse of communism, which seems to make no sense at all.Furthermore, the second reference, 'Spirit and system' is a book critically examining German political culture. The references provided do not seem to provide any support for the material in this paragraph. The paragraph itself does not explain why particular German concepts of educational development should be considered as defining 'general knowledge'. Therefore, I am deleting this material due to irrelevant and misleading content and references that do not even appear to verify the content. Smcg8374 01:31, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Update: for some reason an editor decided to restore the content that defined 'general knowledge' as "Allgemeinbildung". No justification for this was provided even though defining the topic this way makes no sense for the reasons I have already explained. I consider this disruptive editing because it is changing the very definition of the topic with no rational justification. Furthermore, the same nonsensical and irrelevant references were provided. Smcg8374 10:42, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * (The two references actually mentioned "bildung" but not "allgemeinbildung" and neither one stated that "bildung" can be translated into English as "general knowledge" so they constituted original research. Fortunately the editor concerned seems to have moved on and has left this article in peace.)--Smcg8374 (talk) 05:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)