Common Sense Versus Science

Academic Thinking Merits and Beliefs The relationships between and among common sense, science, personal beliefs and critical thinking is somewhat complicated because there are so many different variables to consider. Science is a branch of thought that is based on empirical evidence and that which can be proven. Personal beliefs are essentially opinions, which need not be based upon empirical evidence. Common sense are those things that are readily apparent to most people with most perceptions -- there is a degree of basic science or empirical evidence in common sense.

Additionally, common sense can be a part of one's personal beliefs. Lastly, critical thinking is the ability to analyze distinct factors or facets of something and to draw conclusions, or inferences, from them in a manner in which one is able to synthesize these different elements. Critical thinking can involve aspects of science, personal beliefs, and common sense, although it is best to mitigate one's personal beliefs with these other forms of thoughts and beliefs mentioned.

Science plays a role in scholarship in that it helps to represent one of the best methods of approaching scholarship. Science is based on determining facts and drawing conclusions from it. Cogent scholarship revolves around this same basic principle. The role of personal beliefs should be minimized in scholarship for the simple fact that one needs to think. If one has already drawn conclusion's based on one's personal beliefs, then there is no need for scholarship.

In some ways, common sense provides the foundation for scholarship because there are very few situations in which people do not have some basic understanding, or conception, of scholarly concepts. That basic conception is provided by common sense. Critical thinking is the foundation of scholarship, because it represents the objective viewpoint upon which true scholarship is based. In some ways, critical thinking is one's "best thinking" (Elder and Paul, 2013). Belief perseverance is best defined as a persistence in one's belief or in one's belief system.

Belief perseverance can substantially impact critical thinking and scholarship in general. Belief perseverance serves as the means to fuel scholarship and critical thinking. For instance, if one has a particular belief in something and there is evidence to the contrary, belief perseverance will enable one to continue to persist in that belief.

Additionally, in such an instance belief perseverance will motivate that individual to think critically about whatever the issue is, and to continue to think critically about it -- and engage in scholarship -- to find a way in which one's belief is found correct. In this regard, belief perseverance serves as one of the impetus' for critical thinking, as thinking is "driven by questions" (Critical Thinking, 2013).

It can function as the foundation for the need to think critically about a topic, and to engage in scholarship to validate or eradicate that belief. In most cases, the believer will hope the outcome is the former. The one strategy that I would employ to ensure that I am able to think critically in the presence of my personal belief system is referred to as the sociological imagination.

This concept revolves around the fact that people need to consider a host of other factors -- typically those which are sociological in nature.