More than common sense

    I often hear the phrase ?common sense? bandied about by candidates who promise ?common sense solutions? to our problems. The other day I looked up the phrase in the dictionary, and according to Merriam-Webster, common sense is defined as ?sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.? Who could be against that? Who could deny that sound and prudent judgment is a virtue?

    At the same time, we must remember that common sense has its limits, for there are facts about the world not readily apparent, and to find them requires more than common sense. As the American economist Stuart Chase once quipped, ?Common sense is that which tells us the world is flat.?

    A great many discoveries in astronomy surely violate our hunches about the universe and our place in it. Looking up in the sky, it?s obvious that the sun revolves around the earth and that it is only slightly larger than the moon. It?s also common sense to say the earth is stationary. After all, can you feel it move? Of course, we now know our intuitions about the solar system are dead wrong. We know that, despite appearances to the contrary, the sun?s diameter is 400 times larger than the moon?s and that the earth is not standing still but rather orbiting the sun at a brisk 67,000 miles per hour. We owe these discoveries to astronomers who questioned their gut reactions and sought a deeper truth grounded in science and reason.

For the full column, see the Aug. 25 edition of The Washington Evening Journal