Common sense is useless in a discussion of scientific topics.

Bump with a new counter-intuitive discovery! Glass will melt when it gets too cold! Is that awesome or what? It also doesn't make a lick of common sense!

I just want to bump this because there's too damn much of 'sense' and 'common sense' lately.

Let me ask you something: Where is the common sense in the idea that each object in the universe exerts an attractive force upon other objects?

what is common sense exactly? how to a group of people agree on what color the sky is? or better yet, how did a group of people in the past come to the conclusion that the sky is in fact blue when they did not have a fraction of the scientific understanding of how the human brain works and processes colors.

there is a little law that has been floating around sometime now and it is called "Majority Rule" I'm sure you've heard of it... Right now atheists make up a very small minority (including China) hehe of the planets population.

but hey, minorities have rights... good thing we're past the burn em at the stake days.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Read your post and can't say you are 100%. Common sense tells me when I toss a rock into the air it will come back down. Science proves it of course. I am not arguing your evolutions theories one way or the other. Science and common sense may not be mutually exclusive,But they can coexist.
Just a quick note before Gravity was considered and termed it was common sense ei when ever you shot an arrow up it came back down. Before arrows it was sling stones.. Cave paintings show cavemen dropping rocks on mammoths. Not understanding the properties of gravity did not preclude using it...Common Sense

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by predator0187

 

Well, that's the thing about common sense, it's common. The majority of science is uncommon and some of it is very rare to come across.

Now, you're right that an informed populace would allow for common sense to become a much greater thing, but that's not the case.

And any new counterintuitive scientific discoveries will be subject to the same bias that the old ones that are now in the canon of 'common sense' were subject to initially.

Hence, common sense is still useless in science. Only informed sense.

ya,

all soooooooooo above the common people.

you want to go back to the high priest crap and "oracle" gods stuff, huh?

sorry, we can burn u guys now.

reply to post by Therian


And none of that contains the idea that there is an invisible attractive force between all objects...the idea that an arrow falls to the ground had nothing to do with the idea that there is an invisible attractive force.

Common sense may help with discovering some surface ideas about the world, but the realities of the universe are far from intuitive.

reply to post by fooks


Wow, what a big straw man you've made! I've never seen one that big before.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/40564519ea83.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by fooks
ya,

all soooooooooo above the common people.

you want to go back to the high priest crap and "oracle" gods stuff, huh?

Hell fornicating no. I'm talking about helping people understand that common sense is useless. In my ideal world the average person would have greater critical thinking faculties than me. The average person, the common person, would have a greater understanding of science and the scientific method than me.

I want to make the common people better, not make them dependent on me. I want the average person to not be lured in by woo and superstition.

sorry, we can burn u guys now.

Last time I checked, genocide against intellectuals would be the most horrendous idea for the quality of life of the average people.

reply to post by SisyphusRide

Originally posted by SisyphusRide
what is common sense exactly?

Well, I'd agree with Einstein:

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

how to a group of people agree on what color the sky is?

Consensus. Granted, I have no way of knowing if what I consider to be blue appears to be blue in your eyes. Your 'blue' might look like what I see as red. Of course, we can objectively measure the color of the sky using instrumentation that takes a reading of the frequency of the light refracted through the atmosphere.

Hell, common sense tells us that the sky is blue..really, the sky is colorless. What we're seeing is refracted sunlight, which is why the sky isn't blue at night.

or better yet, how did a group of people in the past come to the conclusion that the sky is in fact blue when they did not have a fraction of the scientific understanding of how the human brain works and processes colors.

Because it's a pretty simple label. We're not talking about assigning colors, we're talking about determining the working of complex systems. Last I checked, these same people also thought that consciousness and feeling resided in the heart....so....they got a few fairly obvious things right and got pretty much everything else wrong.

Even Aristotle, one of the most brilliant people in all of human history, was wrong about nearly everything he said. He was closer to right than most other people, but his lack of a good system by which to derive understanding of the universe around him hampered his progress.

there is a little law that has been floating around sometime now and it is called "Majority Rule"

Really? I've not heard of a nation which has that rule? Oh, you're thinking that elections based on popular vote constitutes a law that declares that the majority is allowed to declare what the nature of reality is. Guess what: If fornicating isn't!

I'm sure you've heard of it... Right now atheists make up a very small minority (including China) hehe of the planets population.

And yet they make up the majority of the nations which have the highest standard of living and they make up the vast majority of academia.

Oh, and the crazy thing is that we're talking about science instead of religion or governance. Science is not a democracy, it is a tyranny of evidence.

but hey, minorities have rights... good thing we're past the burn em at the stake days.

Yeah, you just oppress them, prevent them from holding significant amounts of political power while making sure they aren't properly able to practice free speech.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


you see that is exactly my point... there are just some people who have their science, politics, and their religion all mixed up. It is quite obvious when one is graced by the presence from one of these individuals. In all actuality these particular individuals are just fanatics... they claim to be all scientific but never talk about anything interesting about science ect. The only thing these fanatics use science or politic for is to push their belief system onto others. Most everything in their minds revolve around religion and beliefs, the science or politics card is only pulled to mask something they themselves do not understand.

reply to post by SisyphusRide


I'm guessing you mean those people called 'fundamentalists', who don't know squat about science and couldn't science their way out of a paper bag.

Just so people can understand the Monty Hall problem better, I will present it in a way that's more understandable.

We have 3 doors
D1_____D2_____D3______

-1 door has a car and 2 doors have a goat.

-Whatever door you pick, that door has a 1/3 chance of having a car.

-If you stay, you always have a 1/3 chance of winning the car.

-The other 2 doors have 2/3 chance of having the car.

-When 1 of those 2 doors are revealed to be a goat, that doesn't change the fact, the 2 doors combined still have a 2/3 chance of having the car.

So changing has 2/3 chance of winning.

Yes you should switch, as that would indeed improve your odds from 1/3 to 2/3. You can also look at it this way: What if after your initial pick of curtain #1, I told you that you could stay with #1 or switch to BOTH #2 and #3? My guess is that you would switch so that you could look behind both curtains in spite of the fact that you KNOW that at least one of the curtains does not have a car behind it. Lets say that the first curtain that you open is #3 and you find that there is no car behind it. You now get to open curtain # 2, giving you 2 chances. What is the difference if you open curtain #3 or the host opens curtain #3 for you? Either way, you get to look behind curtain # 2.

reply to post by addygrace

Just so people can understand the Monty Hall problem better, I will present it in a way that's more understandable.

We have 3 doors
D1_____D2_____D3______

-1 door has a car and 2 doors have a goat.

-Whatever door you pick, that door has a 1/3 chance of having a car.

-If you stay, you always have a 1/3 chance of winning the car.

-The other 2 doors have 2/3 chance of having the car.

-When 1 of those 2 doors are revealed to be a goat, that doesn't change the fact, the 2 doors combined still have a 2/3 chance of having the car.

So changing has 2/3 chance of winning.

That is, of course, the 'main stream' answer.

However, it misses one extremely important point: the game does not stop when the goat is exposed.

When the goat door is first exposed, the doors still retain the original odds, that is true. If the game stopped there, the chance that you picked the correct door is still exactly 1 in 3. But the game does not stop there.

You are then given the option of 'sticking with your original choice, or switching to the other door'. That is a strictly binary choice between two doors, and the odds change accordingly.

You must now choose between two doors one with the car and one with the goat. The third door is irrelevant.

I know the argument: if you stick with your original door, that is equivalent to the 1 from 3 choice you had at the beginning, therefore the other door is carrying 2/3 of the odds, but that is false. The binary choice is a completely new decision, and establishes an entirely new game.

If your original pick was a goat, the host exposes the other goat, and you now get to choose between the two remaining doors. A completely new decision; 100% independent of the first decision, no matter how it is worded.

If your original pick was the car, the host exposes either goat, and you now get to choose between the remaining doors. A completely new decision; 100% independent of the first decision, no matter how it is worded..

It doesn't make any difference what-so-ever whether you switch or not, either way you have a 50% chance of getting it right (or wrong).

EDIT: Arrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhh. I made this exact argument two years ago in this very thread!

reply to post by SisyphusRide

how to a group of people agree on what color the sky is?

By consistently describing the sensory experience of sky color using the word 'blue'. Spanish speakers, of course, would not agree that the sky is blue, they would be adamant that the sky is 'azul'. On the other hand, people living in Melbourne Australia at this time of year would most likely insist that the sky is 'gray'.

I used common sense to come up with the answer to your question, but determining what color the sky is has nothing to do with common sense, just shared experience and language.

or better yet, how did a group of people in the past come to the conclusion that the sky is in fact blue when they did not have a fraction of the scientific understanding of how the human brain works and processes colors.

As pointed out in the above sentence, the color of the sky is not a 'fact' requiring scientific method to determine. It is an experience that has been consistently labeled with the same word. People speaking the same language use the same word to describe the color they experience. Those folks who have a some form of color vision deficiency may have trouble relating to that experience to a greater or lessor degree.

Determining the wave length of the light that is not scattered by the atmosphere under specific conditions is a scientific process of course, but we don't say something is blue because it has a certain wavelength. What we find is that blue things have the same wavelength (ignoring shades of color), red things have the same wavelength, yellow things have the same wavelength, etc, and therefore wavelength is what our eyes are distinguishing when we see color.

Edit: in other words, science 'explains' 'blue' it doesn't define it.

reply to post by rnaa


Thank you! I couldn't agree more. The door analogy is flawed. I know as a poker player, it's the gambler's fallacy. Odds change when a new choice is given, the odds prior to that moment are irrelevant. We could simplify it by talking about flipping a coin. Each time you flip it, it has a 50% chance of landing on heads. This means it could hit tails 100 times in a row, but that does not change the odds on the pending flip. Even after 100 tails in a row, the odds of the next coin hitting heads is still 50%. As soon as the 3rd door is eliminated in the game, the odds are 50/50 between the 2 doors. Just because your original pick was 30%, does not mean sticking with it retains the old odds. A good hand on the flop may be favored to win, but that doesn't mean you keep betting when new cards come out that change the value of it. The dude in the video is wrong, although I liked the gist of what he was saying for the most part. Funny, I didn't even notice it was from 2010. Ah well interesting thread nonetheless! Some very insightful recent posts, I must say.

rnaa,

re: "It doesn't make any difference what-so-ever whether you switch or not, either way you have a 50% chance of getting it right (or wrong)."

As I asked previously, if after your initial pick of curtain #1, and before the host opens any curtains, I told you that you could stay with #1 or switch to BOTH #2 and #3, what would you do? My guess is that you would switch so that you could look behind both curtains #2 and #3 in spite of the fact that you KNOW that at least one of the curtains does not have a car behind it. Lets say that the first curtain that you open is #3 and you find that there is no car behind it. You now get to open curtain # 2, giving you 2 chances. What is the difference if you personally open curtain #3 or the host opens curtain #3 for you?

Barcs,

re: " As soon as the 3rd door is eliminated in the game, the odds are 50/50 between the 2 doors."

As I asked rnaa, what difference does it make if you personally open curtain #3 or the host opens curtain #3 for you?

You can also think of it as two areas. Area "A" contains curtain #1 and area "B" contains curtains #2 and #3. There is a 1/3rd chance that the car is in area "A" and a 2/3rds chance that it is in area "B". Before opening any curtains, you KNOW that at least one of the curtains in area "B" doesn't have the car behind it. So by opening a curtain in area "B" that doesn't have a car behind it doesn't change the 2/3rds odds that area "B" still has a car in it.

Originally posted by rstrats


Barcs,

re: " As soon as the 3rd door is eliminated in the game, the odds are 50/50 between the 2 doors."

As I asked rnaa, what difference does it make if you personally open curtain #3 or the host opens curtain #3 for you?

In odds? It makes no difference, it only matters who chooses the door. As the contestant you have a choice between 2 doors, so it's 50% chance of success from that moment on. Picking Door 1 in round 1 does not make it more likely to be door 2 in the grand scheme of things. It's illogical because you could just as easily pick door 2 in the first round,. It doesn't make door 1 more likely (assuming door #3 is reveal in both examples). In round one you ALWAYS have a 30% chance of success, nomatter what you pick. In round 2, you have a 50% chance. Retaining your original pick does not retain the original odds.

You can also think of it as two areas. Area "A" contains curtain #1 and area "B" contains curtains #2 and #3. There is a 1/3rd chance that the car is in area "A" and a 2/3rds chance that it is in area "B". Before opening any curtains, you KNOW that at least one of the curtains in area "B" doesn't have the car behind it. So by opening a curtain in area "B" that doesn't have a car behind it doesn't change the 2/3rds odds that area "B" still has a car in it.

But Area B is relative, depending on which door you pick as A. Of course it's always more likely to be in 2/3 doors instead of 1/3 doors. But you don't get to pick and reveal 2 of 3 so again, it's irrelevant to the odds. Sorry, nomatter how you slice it, it's 50/50 after one door is eliminated. The original odds are irrelevant when the situation changes. I always think to star trek. If Tuvok calculates the odds of survival at 20% with current circumstances and then somebody from the crew alters part of the warp drive to address the issue, new odds must be calculated at that moment. So if the new odds are 75%, and they proceed and survive, it doesn't mean they survived a 20% chance.

Barcs,

re: "As the contestant you have a choice between 2 doors, so it's 50% chance of success from that moment on."

As the contestant, , if after your initial pick of curtain #1, and before the host opened any curtains, I told you that you could stay with #1 or switch to BOTH #2 and #3, what would you do?

Originally posted by rstrats


Barcs,

re: "As the contestant you have a choice between 2 doors, so it's 50% chance of success from that moment on."

As the contestant, , if after your initial pick of curtain #1, and before the host opened any curtains, I told you that you could stay with #1 or switch to BOTH #2 and #3, what would you do?

That's not how the game works. Obviously if you are allowed to choose 2 doors instead of 1, your odds go up substantially. You essentially have a chance of 33% picking one door, and 66% if you pick 2 doors. That is still completely irrelevant, because at no point in the game do you pick 2 doors at once, only 1 door is revealed at a time. It doesn't count as 2 doors after the fact. Run a simulation for yourself with all possibilities and outcomes. Choosing 1 door does not make the other door more likely, in any case.

Let's look at this example:

DOOR1 - DOOR2 - DOOR3
-Car------- Donkey-- Donkey.

Contestant chooses door 1. Door 3 is revealed. Switching to 2 DOES NOT increase the odds of success, because the car was always at door 1. The other odds fail to account for changing circumstances. As soon as door 3 is revealed you have a 50% chance between Door 1 and door 2. It is a new choice, with new odds. The guy in the video is wrong and your example does not work without changing the situation and therefor the odds.