When reality is counterintuitive, common sense is folly.

      Common sense isn't all that it's cracked up to be.  That's why we need a clearer view of reality: to counterbalance the sometimes harmful effects of common sense.
     Let's start with a working definition of common sense.  Common sense is a body of beliefs that people commonly accept as true, even if they're false.  These beliefs are often supported with aphorisms that are often contradictory and sometimes wrong.  
     Here are two examples:
    1.  "Anything worth doing is worth doing well" suggests a corollary, "If you can't do it well, don't do it at all."  On the other hand, you hear people say, "Practice makes perfect," which suggests that if you can't do something well, it's all right to do it badly until you can do it well. 
     2.) "Many hands make light work," and, "Too many cooks spoil the broth."  You can't depend on common sense to tell you how many people should work on a given task.  
     Much of what we call common sense is based on a circular argument: 1.) If something seems obvious to us, we call it common sense.  2.) If it's common sense, it must be true.  3.) It must be common sense because it's obvious to us.  
     Many things that seem obvious are false.  That's where the word counterintuitive comes in.  Counterintuitive is defined as something that is true but which "does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition, common sense, or gut feelings."
     Many untrue things seem obvious because we unconsciously straighten things that are crooked and neaten things that are complicated or downright messy.  We tell ourselves that South America is directly south of North America because that's the way it should be.  Let's test that belief, shall we?
     Question: Of the 13 national capitals of South American countries (we're not counting Caribbean or Central American countries), how many are farther west than Miami, Florida?
     Answer: Click this link.   If you have a hard time believing the map, check the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinances for Miami, Florida; and  Quito, Peru.
     Many things that we think are true are an oversimplification of something authority figures such as our high school teachers told us.  
     To give one example, most people think that the earth orbits the sun.  No, it doesn't.  If it did, Earth's orbit would be circular rather than elliptical.  Even your high school science teacher "admitted"  that the earth's orbit was elliptical.   Earth orbits according to the solar system's gravitational field; everything in the solar system influences Earth's orbit.  Most of the time, Earth is orbiting a point in empty space.  For that matter, Earth's orbit isn't exactly elliptical either because the sun is also in motion in its orbit around the galaxy.  Earth's orbit is shaped more like a lopsided Slinky®.
     Here's another test of how well you perceive reality.  You've heard the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Emperor's New Clothes."  In this story, an emperor was tricked into paying good money for nothing and thinking that he'd bought clothing of considerable value.  Do you know anyone who has that poor a grasp of reality?  Actually, it's much more common than you think.  Read the article "The Emperor's New Logo."

     Here's a final (for now) test of whether common sense is a reliable guide to reality.  Question: What is the main idea of most news stories?  If you answered, "Telling readers the events of the day," you're mistaken.  Most news stories are written to tell readers what somebody told the reporter has happened; in most cases, the reporter doesn't know if he has been told the truth.  That's why reporters use something called attribution.  To protect themselves and their newspapers, they use such words as said, reported, documents show, accused, denied, and so on.  The first page of the newspaper (at left) contains more than fifty samples of attribution.  (Click photo for higher resolution.)  No, most reporters are not investigative reporters, and they don't have all the time in the world to find out if they've been told the truth.  If you really want to know, you'll have to look it up yourself.  That's one of the reasons we have the Internet.
    This site, Paradigmaclast, is dedicated to giving you information and stories that reveal or suggest other ways of looking at the world.  Toward that end, as time permits, I'm adding how-to books, novellas, and other works I have written or otherwise created.  I'm not necessarily talking about replacing one paradigm with another.  I'm talking about broadening our options by broadening our vistas.