Common Sense

Common sense is how things would be if everything you believed was actually true. If you understand everything perfectly then your "common sense" will tell you how things behave, etc.Thus if you believe that water runs downhill, then common sense tells you that water runs downhill.Because nobody truly understands everything, and most people hardly understand anything, real common sense is rare and highly uncommon. No, because science needs to test all our understandings of reality, while common sense is just pretending that your beliefs are true.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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The problem with this is that it is limiting your starting point, quite possibly to starting in the wrong direction. Quite so, and perfect examples of why we should not start with "common sense" in formation of hypothesis. For example (if I recall my science history correctly and it is not just another urban myth ...) It took from Aristotle to Galileo to get beyond the "common sense" view to actually testing it.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : •

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Hello Ray,I think you are missing the point/s. For one, we were talking about science in general, not evolution, and to equate the two is not common sense. People should know that chemistry, physics and geology are not biological sciences, for instance.Second, not being limited to only considering "common sense" hypothesis does not mean that none are considered. Curiously, once science has demonstrated the validity of a concept it can become "common sense" ... such as that the earth orbits the sun.Third, you seem to have somehow equated "common sense" with belief in (your personal version of) god, when "what you believe" includes a lot of other things (such as rocks falling when dropped, and the sun rising in the east).One could just as easily use "accepted truth" instead of "common sense" and you will see the same problem -- "accepted" by who? and the question of why should we not test those "accepted truth" instead of assume they are true? Before Copernicus it was an "accepted truth" that the sun orbited the earth. Before Galileo it was an "accepted truth" that different weights fell at different speeds. Changing these "accepted truths" to the ones we use today does not mean (a) that your religion is dismissed or ignored or (b) that the new "accepted truths" are correct. They just give us a better basis for understanding the reality, reality that may have been created or may have happened by its own free will ...If you really want to know the truth you have to treat all concepts with open-minded skepticism, and test them for validity rather than blindly accept any. That means not ruling out god as much as it means not ruling out evolution without having tested reasons for doing so.So far, I have seen no test that rules out either.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : truth not factsEdited by RAZD, : concept not commentEdited by RAZD, : just the fax

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •