On Common Sense

As sociologist and network science pioneer Duncan Watts explains in Everything is obvious, the explanations that we give for the outcomes that we observe in life—explanation that seem obvious once we know the answer—are less useful than they seem.

Common sense

The miraculous piece of human intelligence that enables us to solve these problems is what we call common sense. Common sense is so ordinary that we tend to notice it only when it’s missing, but it is absolutely essential to functioni...