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We can't trust common sense but we can trust science.
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James Warren
Feb 2, 2016, 10:08:25 PM2/2/16
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This is a repost from another newsgroup.
We can't trust common sense but we can trust science.
February 2, 2016 by Peter Ellerton, The University Of Queensland, The Conversation in Other Sciences
/ Other
We can't trust common sense but we can trust science. You can’t rely on common sense. Credit:
Shutterstock/ra2studio
When a group of Australians was asked why they believed climate change was not happening, about one
in three (36.5%) said it was "common sense", according to a report published last year by the CSIRO.
This was the most popular reason for their opinion, with only 11.3% saying their belief that climate
change was not happening was based on scientific research.
Interestingly, the same study found one in four (25.5%) cited "common sense" for their belief that
climate change was happening, but was natural. And nearly one in five (18.9%) said it was "common
sense" that climate change was happening and it was human-induced.
It seems the greater the rejection of climate science, the greater the reliance on common sense as a
guiding principle.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott also appealed to "common sense" when arguing against gay marriage
recently.
But what do we mean by an appeal to common sense? Presumably it's an appeal to rationality of some
sort, perhaps a rationality that forms the basis of more complex reasoning. Whatever it is, we might
understand it better by considering a few things about our psychology.
It's only rational
It's an interesting phenomenon that no one laments his or her lack of rationality. We might complain
of having a poor memory, or of being no good at maths, but no one thinks they are irrational.
Worse than this, we all think we're the exemplar of the rational person (go on, admit it) and, if
only everyone could see the world as clearly as we do, then all would be well.
We can't trust common sense but we can trust science.
Social cognition can be powerful. Credit: Pixabay, CC BY
Rather than being thought of as the type of reasoning everyone would converge on after thoughtful
reflection, however, common sense too often just means the kind of sense we individually have. And
anyone who agrees with us must also, logically, have it.
But more likely, as Albert Einstein supposedly put it:
[…] common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior
to the age of eighteen.
In other words, common sense is indeed very common, it's just that we all have a different idea of
what it is.
Thinking that feels right.
The appeal to common sense, therefore, is usually nothing more than an appeal to thinking that just
feels right. But what feels right to one person may not feel right to another.
When we say to each other "that sounds right", or "I like the sound of that", we are generally not
testing someone's argument for validity and soundness as much as seeing if we simply like their
conclusion.
Whether it feels right is usually a reflection of the world view and ideologies we have
internalised, and that frame how we interact with new ideas. When new ideas are in accord with what
we already believe, they are more readily accepted. When they are not, they, and the arguments that
lead to them, are more readily rejected.
We too often mistake this automatic compatibility testing of new ideas with existing beliefs as an
application of common sense. But, in reality, it is more about judging than thinking.
As the psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman notes in his book Thinking Fast and Slow,
when we arrive at conclusions in this way, the outcomes also feel true, regardless of whether they
are. We are not psychologically well equipped to judge our own thinking.
We are also highly susceptible to a range of cognitive biases, such as the availability heuristic
that preference the first things that come to mind when making decisions or giving weight to evidence.
One way we can check our internal biases and inconsistencies is through the social verification of
knowledge, in which we test our ideas in a rigorous and systematic way to see if they make sense not
just to us, but to other people. The outstanding example of this socially shared cognition is science.
Science is not common sense.
It's important to realize that science is not about common sense. Nowhere is this more evident than
in the worlds of quantum mechanics and relativity, in which our common sense intuitions are
hopelessly inadequate to deal with quantum unpredictability and space-time distortions.
But our common sense fails us even in more familiar territory. For centuries, it seemed to people
that the Earth could not possibly be moving, and must therefore be at the centre of the universe.
Many students still assume that an object in motion through space must have a constant force acting
on it, an idea that contradicts Netwon's first law. Some people think that the Earth has gravity
because it spins.
And, to return to my opening comment, some people think that their common sense applied to
observations of the weather carries more weight on climate change than the entire body of scientific
evidence on the subject.
Science is not the embodiment of individual common sense, it is the exemplar of rational
collaboration. These are very different things.
It is not that individual scientists are immune from the cognitive biases and tendencies to fool
themselves that we are all subject to. It is rather that the process of science produces the checks
and balances that prevent these individual flaws from flourishing as they do in some other areas of
human activity.
In science, the highest unit of cognition is not the individual, it is the community of scientific
enquiry.
Thinking well is a social skill.
That does not mean that individuals are not capable of excellent thinking, nor does it mean no
individual is rational. But the extent to which individuals can do this on their own is a function
of how well integrated they are with communities of systematic inquiry in the first place. You can't
learn to think well by yourself.
In matters of science at least, those who value their common sense over methodological,
collaborative investigation imagine themselves to be more free in their thinking, unbound by
involvement with the group, but in reality they are tightly bound by their capabilities and
perspectives.
We are smarter together than we are individually, and perhaps that's just common sense.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The Conversation
Source: The Conversation
"We can't trust common sense but we can trust science" February 2, 2016
http://phys.org/news/2016-02-common-science.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
__._,_.___
Posted by: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <rsto...@bigpond.net.au>
--
-jw
We can't trust common sense but we can trust science.
February 2, 2016 by Peter Ellerton, The University Of Queensland, The Conversation in Other Sciences
/ Other
We can't trust common sense but we can trust science. You can’t rely on common sense. Credit:
Shutterstock/ra2studio
When a group of Australians was asked why they believed climate change was not happening, about one
in three (36.5%) said it was "common sense", according to a report published last year by the CSIRO.
This was the most popular reason for their opinion, with only 11.3% saying their belief that climate
change was not happening was based on scientific research.
Interestingly, the same study found one in four (25.5%) cited "common sense" for their belief that
climate change was happening, but was natural. And nearly one in five (18.9%) said it was "common
sense" that climate change was happening and it was human-induced.
It seems the greater the rejection of climate science, the greater the reliance on common sense as a
guiding principle.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott also appealed to "common sense" when arguing against gay marriage
recently.
But what do we mean by an appeal to common sense? Presumably it's an appeal to rationality of some
sort, perhaps a rationality that forms the basis of more complex reasoning. Whatever it is, we might
understand it better by considering a few things about our psychology.
It's only rational
It's an interesting phenomenon that no one laments his or her lack of rationality. We might complain
of having a poor memory, or of being no good at maths, but no one thinks they are irrational.
Worse than this, we all think we're the exemplar of the rational person (go on, admit it) and, if
only everyone could see the world as clearly as we do, then all would be well.
We can't trust common sense but we can trust science.
Social cognition can be powerful. Credit: Pixabay, CC BY
Rather than being thought of as the type of reasoning everyone would converge on after thoughtful
reflection, however, common sense too often just means the kind of sense we individually have. And
anyone who agrees with us must also, logically, have it.
But more likely, as Albert Einstein supposedly put it:
[…] common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior
to the age of eighteen.
In other words, common sense is indeed very common, it's just that we all have a different idea of
what it is.
Thinking that feels right.
The appeal to common sense, therefore, is usually nothing more than an appeal to thinking that just
feels right. But what feels right to one person may not feel right to another.
When we say to each other "that sounds right", or "I like the sound of that", we are generally not
testing someone's argument for validity and soundness as much as seeing if we simply like their
conclusion.
Whether it feels right is usually a reflection of the world view and ideologies we have
internalised, and that frame how we interact with new ideas. When new ideas are in accord with what
we already believe, they are more readily accepted. When they are not, they, and the arguments that
lead to them, are more readily rejected.
We too often mistake this automatic compatibility testing of new ideas with existing beliefs as an
application of common sense. But, in reality, it is more about judging than thinking.
As the psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman notes in his book Thinking Fast and Slow,
when we arrive at conclusions in this way, the outcomes also feel true, regardless of whether they
are. We are not psychologically well equipped to judge our own thinking.
We are also highly susceptible to a range of cognitive biases, such as the availability heuristic
that preference the first things that come to mind when making decisions or giving weight to evidence.
One way we can check our internal biases and inconsistencies is through the social verification of
knowledge, in which we test our ideas in a rigorous and systematic way to see if they make sense not
just to us, but to other people. The outstanding example of this socially shared cognition is science.
Science is not common sense.
It's important to realize that science is not about common sense. Nowhere is this more evident than
in the worlds of quantum mechanics and relativity, in which our common sense intuitions are
hopelessly inadequate to deal with quantum unpredictability and space-time distortions.
But our common sense fails us even in more familiar territory. For centuries, it seemed to people
that the Earth could not possibly be moving, and must therefore be at the centre of the universe.
Many students still assume that an object in motion through space must have a constant force acting
on it, an idea that contradicts Netwon's first law. Some people think that the Earth has gravity
because it spins.
And, to return to my opening comment, some people think that their common sense applied to
observations of the weather carries more weight on climate change than the entire body of scientific
evidence on the subject.
Science is not the embodiment of individual common sense, it is the exemplar of rational
collaboration. These are very different things.
It is not that individual scientists are immune from the cognitive biases and tendencies to fool
themselves that we are all subject to. It is rather that the process of science produces the checks
and balances that prevent these individual flaws from flourishing as they do in some other areas of
human activity.
In science, the highest unit of cognition is not the individual, it is the community of scientific
enquiry.
Thinking well is a social skill.
That does not mean that individuals are not capable of excellent thinking, nor does it mean no
individual is rational. But the extent to which individuals can do this on their own is a function
of how well integrated they are with communities of systematic inquiry in the first place. You can't
learn to think well by yourself.
In matters of science at least, those who value their common sense over methodological,
collaborative investigation imagine themselves to be more free in their thinking, unbound by
involvement with the group, but in reality they are tightly bound by their capabilities and
perspectives.
We are smarter together than we are individually, and perhaps that's just common sense.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The Conversation
Source: The Conversation
"We can't trust common sense but we can trust science" February 2, 2016
http://phys.org/news/2016-02-common-science.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
__._,_.___
Posted by: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <rsto...@bigpond.net.au>
--
-jw
Mike Spencer
Feb 3, 2016, 1:12:09 AM2/3/16
to
Good polemic. But it overlooks the fact that intuition and wisdom
emerge from knowledge and observations that are subliminal, viz. below
the threshold of concrete awareness. Successful intuition and
demonstrable wisdom depend, of course, on learning a great deal of
stuff of diverse sorts and degrees of difficulty. That's why they're
traditionally associated with *old* people. If you're stupid or
ignorant or both (or very young), your intuition and putative wisdom
are likely to be deeply flawed. The author seems to depend for his
argument on the preponderance of apparently educated but nevertheless
ignorant people.
Global climate change my have a scientific near-consensus but many of
the decisions you have to make, whether quotidian or exceptional, do not
admit of scientific or purely rational analysis. Neither are such
decisions, properly speaking, reflexes or instincts. So don't knock
intuition in general. And we could use a lot more wisdom than either
current politics or current economics/finance are evincing.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
James Warren
Feb 3, 2016, 6:23:15 AM2/3/16
to
On 2016-02-03 2:11 AM, Mike Spencer wrote:
> Good polemic. But it overlooks the fact that intuition and wisdom
> emerge from knowledge and observations that are subliminal, viz. below
> the threshold of concrete awareness. Successful intuition and
> demonstrable wisdom depend, of course, on learning a great deal of
> stuff of diverse sorts and degrees of difficulty. That's why they're
> traditionally associated with *old* people. If you're stupid or
> ignorant or both (or very young), your intuition and putative wisdom
> are likely to be deeply flawed. The author seems to depend for his
> argument on the preponderance of apparently educated but nevertheless
> ignorant people.
I wonder what would happen if we kept track of the times our intuition
> Good polemic. But it overlooks the fact that intuition and wisdom
> emerge from knowledge and observations that are subliminal, viz. below
> the threshold of concrete awareness. Successful intuition and
> demonstrable wisdom depend, of course, on learning a great deal of
> stuff of diverse sorts and degrees of difficulty. That's why they're
> traditionally associated with *old* people. If you're stupid or
> ignorant or both (or very young), your intuition and putative wisdom
> are likely to be deeply flawed. The author seems to depend for his
> argument on the preponderance of apparently educated but nevertheless
> ignorant people.
was wrong as well as the times our intuition was right. There might be
an element of confirmation bias operating here.
Saying that does not mean that some people might not have a better intuition
rate or guess rate than others. Still, it is not a good foundation for
a knowledge claim.
>
> Global climate change my have a scientific near-consensus but many of
> the decisions you have to make, whether quotidian or exceptional, do not
> admit of scientific or purely rational analysis. Neither are such
> decisions, properly speaking, reflexes or instincts. So don't knock
> intuition in general. And we could use a lot more wisdom than either
> current politics or current economics/finance are evincing.
>
Baysian processes whether formal or informal, like how the brain probably
operates, may help increase our success rate. A tally of good and bad
decisions, not just good ones might clarify how good this decision
making process really is. I do agree though that prior knowledge can
increase the success rate above chance levels.
--
-jw
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