#2
While they might all look foolish, not all of the questions on this list show that people lack knowledge, for instance. In some cases, what they lack is common sense, but, according to the experts, common sense is knowledge; to some extent, at least.
“Having written a book titled ‘Common Sense’, I have strong feelings about this,” Hans M. Hirschi noted before delving deeper into what common sense is exactly. “To me, common sense is knowledge grounded in proven scientific research combined with personal experience. However, in everyday conversations, we often equate common sense with ‘gut feeling’ or what intuitively makes sense. That isn’t necessarily inaccurate—as long as there's an overlap between intuition and scientific reasoning.
“Think of it like a Venn diagram, with common sense residing in the area where scientific knowledge and gut feeling intersect. So, the degree to which someone exhibits common sense depends on how much they rely on what they know from science in their area of expertise rather than, say, tea leaves,” he explained, adding that he’s more of a coffee person himself.
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Dr. Tanya Kaefer seconded the idea that common sense is very closely linked to knowledge. “Common sense is a bit of a misnomer,” she told Bored Panda. “What we refer to as common sense is really just pieces of knowledge that are known by many people in a group, and that are often learned without direct instruction. So how much common sense a person has generally means whether:
- they’ve encountered the opportunity to learn those pieces of knowledge,
- they were able to extract that knowledge from a situation without instruction, and
- that knowledge is consistent with the current context.
“What I mean by that last part is that any group or culture has their own ‘common sense’ that outsiders to that group or culture may not know. So, for example, in Canada it's common sense to take your shoes off when you enter someone's house, so you don't track in mud and snow. In the US, it's common sense to leave your shoes on, so you aren't showing people your dirty feet. Two different cultures, two different versions of common sense.”
#8
Though many people associate knowledge with school and academia, experts suggest that learning outside of the classroom is incredibly important, too. “What we learn in the classroom is only a fraction of what we need to learn to function,” Dr. Kaefer noted, adding that it's impossible to predict what knowledge will come in handy the most in the future, as the application of knowledge relies entirely on context.
“It's not a matter of what we need to know, it's what we need to know for the situations we find ourselves in. To give you an example, my kindergarten teacher was really worried about my handwriting. My parents got called in for meetings about my handwriting. My handwriting is still terrible, but it turned out not to matter, because most work is done on computers. My kindergarten teacher couldn't have foreseen that - in her mind, a girl needed to be able to write legibly to ensure a paying job. As times change, the ‘important’ knowledge changes, which is why it's so important to maintain the ability and willingness to learn new things,” the expert suggested.
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“Learning outside the classroom is essential,” Hirschi agreed. “While formal education is valuable, life itself is the ultimate teacher—this holds true for any subject. Scientific discoveries and practical skills often emerge outside of academic settings. Real-life application allows us to deepen our understanding and create new insights.”
The expert continued to point out that while academia provides a solid foundation, there’s a wealth of practical knowledge that isn't necessarily covered there. “Think of life skills like traditional cleaning hacks, family recipes, or the way we fold clothes—things passed down through generations. These may not be scientifically optimized but often carry personal significance and memories, which can be just as meaningful as academic knowledge.”
#13
It’s clear that knowledge and learning—both inside and outside of the classroom—play a significant role in people’s lives, and the messages they communicate. But sometimes, even the most knowledgeable of people might slip up and say or ask something completely foolish, only to realize how nonsensical it was after the fact. We asked the experts on why that is, and according to Hirschi, sometimes our mouths simply run faster than our brain does.
“Often, a question lingers in our minds, and even if we can’t immediately recall the answer, our brain continues processing it. The answer can emerge when the right neurons fire, even if not instantly. This implies we either have the answer stored somewhere or can deduce it with some cognitive effort. Sometimes, the ‘aha’ moment happens within seconds, but it might also take hours—some people even wake up in the middle of the night with a sudden revelation!”
#16
“When we are looking for the answer or logic to something, we're doing ‘retrieval,’ as in, we're retrieving information from long-term memory,” Dr. Kaefer noted, discussing why we sometimes need time to figure things out. “But retrieval can be a little odd. We have different pathways to the information, and what things will help prompt retrieval can be hard to predict. So sometimes, asking the question is the thing that allows us to retrieve the answer or the logic [behind something]. So as soon as we ask it, we remember the answer for ourselves.”
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While some people take a bit longer to figure out the logic or the answer behind something, Dr. Kaefer emphasized that we shouldn’t rush to judge them. And she has a point; after all, who hasn’t been in a situation where the brain took its sweet time “loading” something? (I know I sure have.)
“I think common sense is largely overrated, and we can be gentler with people who are asking ‘dumb’ questions. At least they're asking! Better to be the person asking a dumb question than to be a person making an incorrect assumption,” she told Bored Panda.