Quick thought: scientific reasoning and reading

I was thinking about science this morning, and came up with something I wish I had during the previous work for my Masters:

"Scientist aren't the only ones who do scientific reasoning any more than book critics are the only ones who read. Sure the critic may read more challenging material and have a richer discussion of what is going on in it, but reading is something your average person does all day everyday from signs to get around to emails and entertainment. It's something you're doing right now without thinking it extraordinary or uncomfortable. So it is with scientific reasoning too; when defined as 'drawing conclusions based on previous observations and experience' then most problem solving or even wondering if something is true would fall under this label; its why you could say (if pretentious) that you were 'theorizing that X is Y' or 'hypothesizing this author is wrong'.

So when we talking about how people use scientific reasoning, its not about just scientists, but about how people solve problems and make sense of the world they live in everyday."

That would have been a stronger, cleaner introduction to the topic than what I went with at the time, which relied more on examples than a good analogy. I really like the reading analogy to strongly say that this is a common practice, though there are specialized practitioners.

My focus may be more on 'critical thinking' and 'problem solving' now, but its all related. And I still think if we can understand how people do these types of things and how to either teach or help them to do them better, the benefits will more than pay for the effort.

Just a quick thought.