I know a Psych professor who will always open her first lecture with a statement about the 'obvious,' i.e. "How many here know that babies have no gauge of attractiveness towards people, and thus don't prefer to be around attractive people?". After half the class has raised their hands, she'll then inform the class how the opposite is true, and studies have shown that babies actually prefer to be around more conventionally attractive people.
What I mean to explain with this anecdote is that it's very common to dismiss correlations as common sense, when one could just as easily make a 'common sense' assertion about the opposite.
That's often a good test, in fact -- try to develop a 'common sense' assertion for an opposing side, such as "Why would waking up earlier be correlated to healthier eating?". If it's possible to do so, then the common sense probably isn't so common after all.
"How many here know that babies have no gauge of attractiveness towards people, and thus don't prefer to be around attractive people?"
I can’t even begin to fathom the amount of sophistic assumptions and bad data you would need to reach a conclusion for a question like that. And then you would have to look in the mirror and say to yourself “my contribution to society is spending research money to determine whether or not babies prefer to be around attractive people”
What I mean to explain with this anecdote is that it's very common to dismiss correlations as common sense, when one could just as easily make a 'common sense' assertion about the opposite.
That's often a good test, in fact -- try to develop a 'common sense' assertion for an opposing side, such as "Why would waking up earlier be correlated to healthier eating?". If it's possible to do so, then the common sense probably isn't so common after all.