If you ever want to feel like you’re losing brain cells in real time, just bring up a nuanced topic and wait for someone to say, “I may not be an expert, but common sense tells me you’re wrong.” That’s it. That’s the whole argument. It doesn’t matter if you spent years researching the topic. It doesn’t matter if your position is backed by data, peer-reviewed studies, and actual expertise. Because some guy with a gut feeling has spoken.

The problem is, a lot of people genuinely believe common sense and critical thinking are the same thing. Worse, they think one can replace the other. Spoiler alert: They can’t. Common sense is the intellectual equivalent of a fast-food drive-thru—quick, convenient, and just enough to keep you going, but not exactly nutritious. Critical thinking, on the other hand, is the five-course meal that actually requires effort to prepare and digest.

This topic is discussed in greater detail in Own The Libs: Politics is the New Personality. To grab your copy, click the link below.

Why people conflate common sense with critical thinking

The biggest reason common sense gets mistaken for critical thinking is that it feels like thinking. It’s intuitive, automatic, and based on lived experience. And because people trust their own experiences more than external sources, they assume this process is reliable. But here’s the catch: personal experience is inherently limited.

It’s shaped by your environment, your upbringing, and the specific circumstances you’ve encountered. It’s why someone who’s never left their hometown will confidently tell you how the world works. It’s why the guy who’s never had a bad encounter with police insists racial profiling is a myth.

Critical thinking, in contrast, forces you to step outside your own bubble. It requires questioning assumptions, analyzing evidence, and considering alternative perspectives. It takes time, effort, and—this is important—actual knowledge. You can’t critically evaluate something if you don’t have a solid foundation to begin with. That’s why experts, who spend years building that foundation, are better at it than random Facebook uncles who “just ask questions.”

The hot stove problem: Why common sense only works for direct experience

Let’s talk about the hot stove.

If you touch a hot stove, your brain immediately registers the pain. No one needs to explain it to you. You don’t need a research study. You don’t need a debate. You don’t need to hear both sides of the argument. Your nerves send a message directly to your brain, and that’s it—you’ve learned something. The lesson is immediate, undeniable, and personal.

That’s common sense at work. It’s great for situations where cause and effect are obvious, direct, and easy to verify through personal experience. But now, let’s apply that same logic to something more complex, like climate change.

You don’t feel global temperatures rising in the same way you feel a burn. You don’t experience the long-term effects firsthand in a way that provides instant feedback. Instead, you have to rely on data, measurements, and experts—people who study trends over time and piece together the full picture. But because this knowledge isn’t as immediate as the hot stove, a lot of people dismiss it.

They say, “It’s cold today, so how can global warming be real?” because they’re using the wrong mental framework. They expect all knowledge to work like the hot stove, where truth is instant and personal. But real critical thinking requires engaging with information beyond what you can directly experience.

Common sense is just small-scale science with no peer review

To be clear, common sense isn’t useless. It’s great for everyday decision-making. If you see dark clouds, common sense tells you to bring an umbrella. If your friend gets food poisoning from a sketchy street vendor, common sense tells you to avoid that place next time. It’s basically science at the most basic level—hypothesis, experiment, conclusion—but with a sample size of one and no peer review.

The problem is when people start applying it beyond its intended scope. Just because something feels true doesn’t mean it is true. The Earth feels flat. Heavy objects feel like they should fall faster than light ones. But science had to step in and say, “Yeah, no, that’s not how it works.”

And yet, we still get people who reject expert knowledge because it contradicts their gut instincts. It’s how we end up with politicians proudly proclaiming that climate change is a hoax because “It’s snowing outside!” as if their driveway is the control group for global temperature trends.

The political weaponization of common sense

At some point, common sense became a badge of honor, particularly among conservatives who have made it their ideological identity. You believe in data, science, and expertise? Clearly, you’re an out-of-touch elitist. You rely on gut feelings and intuition? Congratulations, you’re a rugged individualist who doesn’t need fancy degrees to know what’s what​.

This is why we now have political slogans like “Trust the science” on one side and “Think for yourself” on the other, as if those two things are opposites. They’re not. Real thinking for yourself means engaging with information critically, not just rejecting it because it came from someone with a PhD.

The appeal of common sense as a political tool is simple: it’s accessible. You don’t need years of education to claim you have it. There’s no certification process, no barriers to entry. Anyone can declare themselves an expert in the school of hard knocks. And if you challenge their reasoning, well, that just proves you’re part of the problem.

Critical thinking is not just “asking questions”

Another popular misconception is that critical thinking is just about skepticism. Conservatives especially love to claim they’re the real critical thinkers because they don’t just blindly trust what they’re told. And sure, questioning things is a part of critical thinking. But there’s a difference between good skepticism and lazy skepticism.

Good skepticism asks questions based on evidence. It cross-checks sources, evaluates arguments, and considers multiple possibilities before arriving at a conclusion. Lazy skepticism, on the other hand, just says, “I don’t buy it,” and leaves it at that. It’s not actually engaging with the information—it’s just rejecting it on principle.

This is why so many people mistake conspiracy theories for critical thinking. They think being skeptical of the “mainstream narrative” makes them enlightened truth-seekers, when in reality, they’re just replacing one unquestioned belief with another​.

Why critical thinking is harder

If common sense is the default setting, critical thinking is the manual override. It takes effort, and that’s why most people avoid it. It’s much easier to rely on quick judgments than to analyze the complexities of an issue.

This is the fundamental gap between common sense and critical thinking. Common sense wants certainty. It deals in absolutes. Critical thinking is comfortable with uncertainty. It acknowledges that knowledge evolves and that sometimes, the best answer we have today might be proven wrong tomorrow.

At the end of the day, common sense has its place. But it’s not a substitute for critical thinking.

The real danger is when people start believing that their common sense is more reliable than actual expertise. That their gut feelings outweigh decades of research. Because that’s how we end up in a world where people think a YouTube video holds the same weight as a scientific study.