Everything is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails

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Common sense underpins the constellation of decisions and opinions we make and form every day. As individuals, and as a society, the way we behave, react and interact is grounded in our perception of 'the sensible thing to do'. But history is a litany of the insensible; misunderstandings and failures, wastes of money and in some cases, wastes of life. And yet we continue to trust in the infallibility of common sense. In this bold thesis, renowned network scientist Duncan Watts exposes the complex mechanics of judgment and proposes a radical new way of thinking about human behaviour. Everything is Obvious demonstrates the striking degree that common sense is rarely applicable as foresight, but rather only as hindsight; and how it is less a process of logic, but rather a product of influence. But if our decisions and opinions are so governed by others, can we be sure if common sense is indicative of what is sensible, or simply of what is common?

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Duncan Watts is a principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research. He is also a professor of sociology at Columbia University, and an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute, and of Nuffield College, Oxford. His research on social networks and collective dynamics has appeared in a wide range of academic journals. Watts is the author of two books, Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age and Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness.