Those who are right are making use of their ability to observe, pay attention to evidence and reason. School is an insignificant contribution.

Which just goes to show that "common sense" isn't nearly as common (or as sensical) as the term implies.

Actually, common sense tells me that holding onto that string is the only force keeping the ball from exiting the loop. The string is staight and at any instant pointing in the direction the ball really wants to go. All Newton and his friendly bunch of physicists did is muck up the works with numbers and Greek letters!!

Common sense tells us that the Moon goes around the Earth. Common sense also tells us that the Sun goes around the Earth.

A good book on the subject of decisions based on common sense is 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. It happens to be supportive of your view and delves more deeply into decision making based on so called instincts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(book)

really? where did you learn to observe, pay attention to evidence and reason? i learned those things in school.

Well... Okay... Hmmm...

I agree with your assessment of your interpretation of "common sense," but it's not quite the interpretation that I would use. I go back to my days as a college student working as a carpenter during the summer breaks. I came away from those years with a sense of the conflict between "common sense" and "book learning" and how neither was an absolute guarantee of knowing the best solution to a problem. In doing so, I came to understand the difference between those two as the difference between "survival" and "thriving." In situations where surviving is paramount (whether it is literally staying alive or just being in a situation where you must accomplish a goal as efficiently and *quickly* as possible to succeed financially), "common sense" solutions are often the best, because they generally arise from a shared historical experience of what "works." Imagine your Newtonian ball on a string as a rock in a sling aimed at a rapidly advancing Visigoth, and I think you'll agree that the only trajectory that counts is the lethal one. Nevertheless, using only common sense can easily overlook superior solutions that are based on a better understanding of facts and theory. Taking the time (book learning, research) to truly understand the problem or task leads to thriving, because you create the windows of opportunity that allow "common sense" to advance. But neither of these can be said to be the correct approach in a given moment without understanding whether you are currently trying to thrive...or just survive.

I think Bob’s implication that Common Sense is misused is right on target. The problem with Common Sense, it depends on the subject at hand. For example, if you are a handy man, and if you were putting in a screw, which way would you turn, right or left? For those who don’t know, you might benefit from my Fathers wisdom since I apparently had no common sense: Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosy.
Common sense, which is really a form of intuition is taught, through interaction, observation and introspection. You get it through experience, not some inbred knowledge (unless you are from Georgia or Britain where the pickings are slim) and thinking you do, opens you up for major mistakes. As a trouble-shooter who looks at diverse number of systems, the first thing I ask myself – If I don’t know the answer right off, or a preliminary check doesn’t check out – What do I know for a fact and what did I assume, and go from there. I find that my biggest problem, is the assumption factor, by programmers, users anyone that is in the process and their uses of “Common Sense.”

So Mark Robinson must have performed _all_ the experiments that Archimedes, Galileo, and Newton performed. I didn't. I have seen people perform experiments and not learn identical things. I have seen people take the identical class from the identical teacher and learn different things.
Seems to me there are two different terms, Common means popular, Sense means whatever philosophy I personally choose to regard as important. Adherence to reality (science) isn't that important to _everyone_ which is why we have difference of POVs. (Survival of the human race is not of paramount importance to _everyone_).

Common sense, to me, means being able to apply that which I have learned. (Sometimes I have it, sometimes I don't.)

As an Engineer, one of the funniest statements I hear is "Theoretically, it should have worked.", which means the speaker missed something in the theory.

Common sense is neither taught to you or is it intuition. It is observing/experiencing cause and effect and understanding the underlying rules then applying them to future situations.

When you were a child you didn't understand what adults meant when they told you the stove was hot and it would burn you but you learned quickly once you touched it.

It is a pity though that some people never make the connections that seem apparent to others. So Bob, there are alot of people who never finished grade school who know the ball won't curve but fly straight through the largest most expensive window available.

I couldn't resist a clarification on the ball on the string experiment for Rick. My book learning says that although the force on the string is radially outward, the released ball will travel in a straight line tangent to the circle it was previously contrained to.

In order for the ball to move in a straight line and not a curved path, many odd things would have to occur. Namely no outside force such as gravity, wind, magnetism, light pressure, could be acting on the ball. From what I understand of physics, you would have a hard time finding such a place to perform your experiment as even the string used and the person swinging the ball would provide enough gravity to affect the path of the ball.

Rick, thanks for proving the point so clearly.

The ball will NOT move parallel with the string if it was free. It will move perpendicular to the line of the string at the moment the string is cut.

Your common sense is wrong :(

A friend once observed that there is no such thing as common sense--It is just the sum total of all your experiences and learning.