Common sense is not that common: a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania concludes the concept is “somewhat illusory.” Researchers collected statements from various sources that had been described as “common sense” and put them to test subjects. The mixed bag of results suggested there was “little evidence that more than a small fraction of beliefs is common to more than a small fraction of people.”
It’s no surprise that there are few universally shared notions of what stands to reason. People took a horse worming drug to cure COVID! They think low-traffic neighborhoods are a communist plot and call the police about KFC running out of chicken! We all think those other guys are the stupid ones.
If you would like to test your own common sense, the Pennsylvania researchers are running an online challenge (commonsense.seas.upenn.edu). Despite dark suspicions about my common sense, I was compelled to try, agreeing or disagreeing with statements, then deciding whether others would think like me.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Some were easy (“No one wants to get ill;” “Glue is sticky”), but some gave ample opportunity to overthink and second guess myself. Surely it isn’t silly to end a marriage if you don’t love someone? Is “loving people more than they deserve” an “aspect of kindness?”
How am I supposed to know anything about the body temperature of cats?
The worst bit was the maths (designed to check if intelligence and common sense are correlated — not particularly, apparently). I’m 49 and haven’t worked out two-thirds of anything since 1992: I had to draw 60 apples to stumble through a simple fraction, guess the full price for a discounted toaster and text my son for help. That exchange ended with me begging him: “Pretend this never happened.”
The verdict? A feeble 53/100 on the “commonsensicality” index (maths score undisclosed). Unwilling to accept my worst mark since year 10 physics, I tried again. And again. By the fifth attempt (yes, a total waste of my time), I had bumped my score up to 97/100. That is a victory for something, but definitely not common sense.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS