Things that should be common sense

[Zugzwang]

To start, I think a big one is that polygraph tests are worthless.

[Mr.Mister]

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments...mmon_knowledge/

[Finn 7 five 11]

I should point out that not only was your point wrong, but it was an example of common knowledge, not common sense.

 

You can't really relate common sense without a scenario.

[na89340qv0n34b09q340]

These were probably covered in the Reddit thread posted, but my first tip is to avoid reddit threads. Base comments aren't usually that bad, but everything else is often worse than youtube comments.

 

• Affect is usually a verb, and effect is usually a noun.

• Evolution doesn't work like in pokemon, it's not something upgrading to get a positive trait to survive, it's something out-surviving other members of the same species because it has a better trait for survival by genetics and chance.

• As an addition to that guy who posted about stats, know the law of large numbers: that as a trial is repeated the average outcome will tend towards the expected value as the number of trials increases. Also the gambler's fallacy: repeatedly getting one outcome in an independent event doesn't make the opposite outcome more likely (ie: flipping heads five times doesn't make the chance of tails on the next flip 5/6).

• Arguing with someone over the internet is a lot less likely to change their opinion than arguing with someone in real life. Usually you're wasting your time. The same can often be applied to 'white-knighting' in a troll thread. (edit: Correcting them on something they're factually wrong about is usually okay though; if they do start arguing about legitimate facts it still applies.)

Edited May 17, 2013 by zoo3891

[Zugzwang]

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments...mmon_knowledge/

Yes, I got the idea from Reddit.