My working assumption is that most people don’t do this because they understand very little about anything, and don’t know that there is a difference between “understanding” something and just reading something, or listening to what someone tells them.
My working assumption is that most people don’t do this because they understand very little about anything, and don’t know that there is a difference between “understanding” something and just reading something, or listening to what someone tells them.
Is that too pessimistic?
No, that seems to be true. “Understanding” in a thorough sense is pretty darn rare and usually confined to specialized fields of study.