Popular Culture: Cognitive Biases Make Common Sense Neither

Dr. Taylor tells us:

In my last post, I argued that common sense was vastly over-rated as a tool for making sound judgments and that we need to engage in “reasoned sense” that includes both extensive direct experience and critical thinking. Taking steps that include the informal use of the scientific method can help us make better decisions.

However, as recent research has demonstrated, even scientists who strictly adhere to the scientific method can’t guarantee that they will draw the best possible conclusions. When I read this research my first thought was, “How could such highly educated and precisely trained professionals veer off the path of objectivity?” The answer is simple: They, like all of us, possess one quality from which it is impossible to divorce themselves. That quality? Being human.

As the fields of psychology and behavioral economics have demonstrated, homo sapiens is a seemingly irrational species that appears to, more often than not, think and behave in nonsensical rather than commonsensical ways. The reason is that we fall victim to a veritable laundry list of cognitive biases that cause us to engage in distorted, imprecise, and incomplete thinking which, not surprisingly, results in “perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, or illogical interpretation” (thanks Wikipedia), and, by extension, poor and sometimes catastrophic decisions. http://drjimtaylor.com/blog/2011/07/...sense-neither/

Taylor proceeds to discuss some of the most widespread cognitive biases that contaminate our ability to use common sense. What I find interesting is how on the one hand Dr. Taylor states that common sense is neither common nor sense; on the other, he talks about the biases that impede our ability to use this same common sense.

Dr. Taylor gets me thinking. What do you think?

LOL Byz, he is mind twisting our Cognitive Bias's.

But it is not far from what I feel a lot about how people seem to need to base their opinions on themselves with a lot of un-needless Bias's. And I do agree with Dr. Taylor in how people often lend themselves to a political belief without really knowing that actual motivation of the current polictial asperations at the time. I can clearly see the wave of deceipt and oddly how a label lends to an often blind following.

And I can see that the way our world economy and different governments are so waved with confusion that so many people truely have no sense of common sense at all. I often wonder if this is done on purpose or if we have just gotten so irrational
with a real sense of uneasyness that even to try to apply any form of common sense is clearly out of sight.

What do you think? That is a very good question and most people are asking it every day. Technology has literally swept us off our feet and so much information is coming at us that the days of connecting with small tribes is so far from us that we are clearly confused.

Let us just think about PC and how that brings all of us together globally. It brings us together so we are starting to see the different tribes are very much like us, and they do feel all the stress that we feel. And it is not so easy just to think of a different country being in a different tribe so to speak anymore. Why? Because we are now really speaking on a civilian level of interaction and this is still fairly new.

I happen to post something about it not being ethical any more to truely group individuals together as we had done not so long ago. And I have stated this because by connecting with different individuals around the world like never before we are finding out that we are not as separate as we thought. The old standby of common sense is truely changing. And this tought really came very clear to me when I was trying to give advice to someone from what one might consider a different tribe. I had to stop and think about the customs of that individual and how my own common sense may confuse the other person. And yet the other person genuinely wanted to hear my opinion from my so called tribe? (just using what was once our base of connecting with certain groups). And this is where the application of that one quality that we cannot divorce ourselves from comes into play, we are infact all human.

We are not in just a town anymore, there is not leave it to Beaver to guide us, it is so much more global now. It is the future that is just beginning to change us and also confuse us. There is so much information now, how can we continue to just be tribal anymore?

We are just beginning to truely wonder, what do you think?

Open Eyes