Chapter XXVII: Common Sense | The Philosophy Of Science by Steven Gussman [1st Edition]

        “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?  Four.  Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't

        make it a leg.”

        – President Abraham Lincoln^I

        “Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.

        – Thomas Huxley^II

        “Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless

        to fallacy in logic.”

        – Thomas Huxley^III

        “Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a

        veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as

        far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.”
        – Thomas Huxley^IV

        Many will be surprised, even appalled to see common sense enumerated among the foundational tool of philosophy of science.  Many of today's scientists and science enthusiasts appear to believe that science is somehow the opposite of common sense.^V  But this is wrong-headed.^VI  When one dispassionately weighs the evidence, the answer will sometimes defy common sense, and sometimes refute it.  How much of either is up to how you count.  We simply don't possess a common sense about most topics (remember, we evolved to be attuned to the narrow band of ontology that Dawkins calls "middle world").^VII  But some things are indeed obvious and some instincts are telling (while still others are misleading).  It was not originally a sophisticated analysis of evidence that suggested sexual dimorphism to our ancestors; it was blatantly obvious to them (which is unsurprising, because it is among the most important things members of a sexually dimorphic species to be aware of).^VIII  They had mating instincts and plainly saw two different sexes in people, as well as morphological and behavior homology in the sex differences of their animals.  And they were right!  When scientists fleshed out the biology of sexual dimorphism over time, adding texture through increased precision and accuracy (including the microscopic facets such as gametes), these studies had replicated common sense.  This does not mean common sense had been correct by accident; it wasn't technically a different philosophy at all in this case, just a crude, proto-scientific tool that would always remain with science.  The later "scientists" were not separate from the "common folk": both had common sense knowledge of sexual dimorphism that they believed (perhaps the philosopher more provisionally than the layperson, in the best case), and when they looked deeper, it replicated.  Naive versions of rare, sexy results are always cited by those skeptical of common sense.  But even these results tend ultimately to replicate common sense (if any was available on the topic) all the moreso!  Take Einstein's special theory of relativity, for example.  It is often considered quite strange that the man had the foresight to contemplate whether time was relative (that it could squash and stretch such that the length of a second is not absolute), and all the stranger that he was right!  The general notion is that Newton and everyone else born to this day were wrong in assuming time was absolute.^IX  But were they, really?  Theoretical science is about discovery, not invention;^X and along those lines, nobody suddenly noticed they had been experiencing strange time warps all along just after Einstein published his result.  No, in fact, his theory had to explicitly account for the common sense fact that time is effectively absolute in those situations we had ever observed or experienced.^XI  When one inspects the actual equation for time dilation, one will find that until one reaches significant proportions of the speed of light (a whopping 300,000,000 m/s, the fastest anything within space-time in the universe is able to go), time dilates so little as to be difficult to measure with instruments, and impossible to notice with one's naked senses.^XII  Technically, this puts the common sense view of in-practice absolute time on the firmest footing is has ever been on: it is now the consequence of a physical law rather than an assumption based on basic pattern recognition (induction).^XIII  In other words, common sense absolute time is a specific case of a more general (and less common sense) theory of time.  Similarly, Darwinnian evolution and Mendelian genetics (or, the neo-Darwinnian synthesis) confirms (and provides much precision to) the common sense concepts of inheritance and kin-preference (kin selection), sense common to humans as well as to other animals, and acted out by all lifeforms.

        Like every claim in our body of knowledge, one does need to apply the other scientific tools to common sense claims, as only serious empirical analysis counts as serious confirmation or falsification, and because it will flesh the idea out more precisely and accurately.  But common sense can be a good jumping-off point, and in any event, generating one's hypotheses by trying to defy common sense is sure to most-often mislead one down the path of sophistry, divorced from reality by ulterior motives (often comporting to one's own political biases and wishful thinking).  This is the "pop science headline" craze that was likely partially responsible for the replication crisis in psychology (especially social psychology).  Being motivated by the use of science to demonstrate surprising results is bound most often to produce nonsense results (and real, properly motivated research will tend to have surprising new implications anyway—relativity tells us that if we speed up, we can and do bend time in defiance of our common sense notions).^XIV  In fact, an area of psychology research called stereotype accuracy has found that, contrary to popular belief, people's stereotypes of other groups tend to be accurate, and people also tend to override such prejudices given contradictory information about the specific person they are dealing with.^XV  This isn't to say that all stereotypes from all times were accurate, but it is common sense to many of us that stereotypes don't develop out of thin air.

        Common sense seems to come from a few different places: shared instincts and intuitions; shared cumulative-cultural wisdom;^XVI and constantly replicating, everyday observations (basic induction).  The fact that the sky is blue is common sense.  Modern science has replicated this finding and has much more to say about the physical chemistry at play (it turns out that while the incoming sunlight is the white sum of all wavelengths, the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere preferentially scatter the blue portions of the spectrum),^XVII but people (indeed, many animals) have surely known this fact for as long as creatures have had eyes.  If someone demands that you cite your source at the claim that the sky is blue, they are committing sophistry.^XVIII  Such a person is being intellectually dishonest, as they know and believe that the sky is blue, rendering their use of methodological criticism as cynical (because they believe many other prosaic facts based on the same level of evidence, including that the sky is blue).^XIX  These types are demonstrating an an overall misunderstanding of philosophy of science of the kind this book is in part meant to address: their criticism implies an ignorance of why rigorous methodology is the way that it is.^XX

        Now people can (claim to) feel all sorts of things are true that aren't so, or that would serve their purposes if they were generally thought to be so.  And there are many topics (perhaps most) on which humans have no common sense about the specifics, or are otherwise misled by their common sense.  Further, there must be a distinction between common sense (roughly those facts that are induced by any reasonable man experiencing the world) and received wisdom such as fads—when it comes to the latter, contrarianism is the antidote.  It is also worth baring in mind that the great scientists of course do solve problems in such a way that at least part of their explanation is highly novel, and obviously was not previously a part of common knowledge—here lies the stuff of geniuses and cranks.^XXI  When it comes to verifying and falsifying claims, there is, at the end of the day, no substitute for the rigorous tests of the scientific method.  But do not allow a taste for the, “weird,” “strange,” “new,” or “common-sense defying,” to derail your quest for the honest truth.

Footnotes:

0. The Philosophy Of Science table of contents can be found, here (footnotephysicist.blogspot.com/2022/04/table-of-contents-philosophy-of-science.html).

I. History educator Ed Darrel has sourced this quotation, finding that Lincoln originally referenced not a dog, but a calf, see “Lincoln Quote Sourced: Calf’s Tail, Not Dog’s Tail” by Ed Darrel (Millard Fillmore's Bathtub) (2007) (https://timpanogos.blog/2007/05/23/lincoln-quote-sourced-calfs-tail-not-dogs-tail/) which further cites Reminiscences Of Abraham Lincoln By Distinguished Men Of His Time collected and edited by Allen Thorndike Rice (Harper & Brothers Publishers) (1853-1889 / 1909) (pp. 242) (though I have never read this work). See also the relevant entry in BrainyQuote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/abraham_lincoln_107482. I became aware of this quote through Sowell, see for example unofficial Twitter user Thomas Sowell Quotes' (@ThomasSowell) March 18^th, 2022 tweet: https://twitter.com/thomassowell/status/1504842224399495168.

II. See the relevant BrainyQuote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_huxley_102235#:~:text=Thomas%20Huxley%20Quotes&text=Science%20is%20organized%20common%20sense%20where%20many%20a%20beautiful,killed%20by%20an%20ugly%20fact and the relevant Quote.org entry: https://quote.org/quote/science-is-organized-common-sense-where-many-109723. I believe early evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley uses, “theory,” here the way I believe we should use, “hypothesis.”

III. See the goodreads entry fror this quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/181580-science-is-simply-common-sense-at-its-best-that-is, and “Thomas Huxley Quotes About Common Sense” (AZ Quotes) (https://www.azquotes.com/author/7119-Thomas_Huxley/tag/common-sense) which further cites An Introduction To The Study Of Zoology, Illustrated By The Crayfish by Thomas Huxley (D. Appleton) (1891 / 1902).

IV. See the goodreads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/165175-science-is-nothing-but-trained-and-organized-common-sense-differing.

V. See "Common Sense" by Robert Provine (Edge / Harper Perennial) (2014 / 2015) (https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25467) in This Idea Must Die edited by Brockman (pp. 157-158); Brief Answers To The Big Questions by Hawking (pp. 51-52); Pale Blue Dot: A Vision Of The Human Future In Space (Ballantine Books) (1994) by Sagan (pp. 25-26, 43); Cosmos by Sagan (pp. 216-217); The Dream Of Reason by Gottlieb (pp. xi, 64-65, 69, 103, 180-181, 251, 445); Fashion, Faith, And Fantasy by Penrose (pp. 145); and Convergence by Watson (pp. 135).

VI. See "Common Sense" by Jared Diamond (Edge / Harper Perennial) (2017 / 2018) (https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27111) in This Idea Is Brilliant edited by Brockman (pp. 221-224); The Dream Of Enlightenment by Gottlieb (pp. 115, 149-150); The Ape That Understood The Universe by Stewart-Williams (pp. 39, 63); The Blank Slate by Pinker (pp. xv, xvi, 50, 181, 197, 362, 369, 422); The Demon Haunted World by Sagan (pp. 50, 81, 103, 166, 243, 275, 297, 314-317, 374); Pale Blue Dot by Sagan (pp. 25-26); Cosmos by Sagan (pp. 193-194, 216-217); A Brief History Of Time by Hawking (pp. 194); The Dream Of Reason by Gottlieb (pp. xi, 64, 79, 123, 166-167, 251, 445); Consilience by E. O. Wilson (p. 6-7); Enlightenment Now by Pinker (pp. 366); Fashion, Faith, And Fantasy by Penrose (pp. xi-xii, 121); and Convergence by Watson (pp. 63, 172, 275). See also my interaction (and surrounding Twitter thread) with evolutionary biologist whom I only know as Twitter user @M_Methuselah (who independently came to this position) between April 27^th-28^th, 2021: https://twitter.com/schwinn3/status/1387266258165506050?s=20&t=jvyu6BTuIoPbsgoU153JVA.

VII. See the “Reductionism And Emergence” chapter which further cites “Why The Universe Seems So Strange | Richard Dawkins” by Dawkins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1APOxsp1VFw) (especially 5:04 – 18:56)

VIII. See The Ape That Understood The Universe by Stewart-Williams (pp. 39, 63) and The Blank Slate by Pinker (pp. xv, xvi, 205, 362, 369).

IX. See Pale Blue Dot by Sagan (pp. 25-26) and Cosmos by Sagan (pp. 216-217).

X. See “In Defense Of Philosophy (Of Science) by Gussman (https://footnotephysicist.blogspot.com/2021/05/in-defense-of-philosophy-of-science.html#FN37B) which further cites To Explain The World by Weinberg (pp. xi).

XI. See Pale Blue Dot by Sagan (pp. 25-26) and Cosmos by Sagan (pp. 216-217).

XII. Look forward to the “Cosmology”, “Astronomy”, and “Physics” chapters in the “Ontology” volume.

XIII. Interestingly Einstein's theories of relativity also place the deterministic, mechanical philosophical theory of cause-and-effect on firmer footing by showing that while time may be warped, never in such a way that a causes precede effects (in fact, a much larger set of events cannot be time-reversed via reference frame in this way, but crucially, the theories of relativity show that causes propagate at finite speeds to produce effects), see Modern Physics by Serway, Moses, and Moyer (pp. 31-35).

XIV. See Pale Blue Dot by Sagan (pp. 25-26) and Cosmos by Sagan (pp. 216-217).

XV. See The Blank Slate by Pinker (pp. 204-206, 470) which further cites Stereotype Accuracy: Toward Appreciating Group Differences edited by Yueh-Ting Lee, Lee J. Jussim, and Clark R. McCauley (APA) (1995) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-88371-000); “Are Stereotypes Exaggerated? A Sampling Of Racial, Gender, Academic, Occupational, And Political Stereotypes” by Clark R. McCauley (APA) (1995) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-88371-009); “Perceived Versus Meta-Analytic Effect Sizes: An Assessment Of The Accuracy Of Gender Stereotypes” by Janet K. Swim (Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology) (1994) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1994-29606-001); “Why Study Stereotype Accuracy And Inaccuracy?” by Lee J. Jussim, Clark R. McCauley, and Yueh-Ting Lee (APA) (1995) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-88371-001), “Are Teacher Expectations Biased By Students' Gender, Social Class, Or Ethnicity?” by Lee J. Jussim and Jacquelynne Eccles (APA) (1995) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-88371-010) (though I have not yet read these works Pinker cited beyond their abstracts).

XVI. See "The Rational Individual" by Alex (Sandy) Pentland (Edge / Harper Perennial) (2014 / 2015) (https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25426) in This Idea Must Die edited by Brockman (pp. 319).

XVII. See Pale Blue Dot by Sagan (pp. 127-131).

XVIII. See the “Sophistry” chapter in The Sophistructure by Gussman (https://footnotephysicist.blogspot.com/2020/08/chapter-1-sophistry-sophistructure-0th.html).

XIX. See Pale Blue Dot by Sagan (pp. 126) and Jussim's December 2nd, 2021 tweet (about “selective calls for rigor”): https://twitter.com/PsychRabble/status/1466434372630982668?s=20.

XX. See the “Methodology” chapter.

XXI. See The Demon Haunted World by Sagan (pp. 302-303); “Bret And Heather 11th DarkHorse Podcast Livestream: Choose Your Own Black Mirror Episode” by B. Weinstein and H. Heying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYQJSobQgAc) (57:49 – 1:02:52); “Bret And Heather 81st DarkHorse Podcast Livestream: Permission to Think” by B. Weinstein and H. Heying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoaKtBMk53Y) (15:31 – 19:54, 19:54 – 38:34); and “Excellence” by E. Weinstein (https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23879) from What Should We Be Worried About edited by Brockman.