The Scarcity of Common Sense

The intelligence of humankind is rapidly declining.

I know I don't even have to explain that statement to those of you who still use your brains on at least a semi-regular basis. And I know that there are a million different things I could mean by this statement. While applicable in many contexts, I refer to common sense here.

You see, "common sense" is not common. This has been said over and over again, but it bears repeating. People really just don't think sometimes. You'd think it'd be "common sense" to not put your hand on a stove top burner in case it has recently been used, but I have witnessed multiple people making that mistake and getting their fingers burned. You'd think it'd be "common sense" to not put metal in a microwave--super high heat + metal, that's basic science from junior high or earlier, folks--but I have seen people do that as well, to pyrotechnic effect. You'd think it'd be "common sense" to not walk out onto a busy street where cars are whipping by, but people do that all the time. Sometimes they're lucky and they just get a horn honked at them (at which point they often have the nerve to look offended when they were the idiots in the first place), but other times they cause accidents and/or get hit.

I'm writing this today because I'm grading a bunch of papers for a professor. The assignment was to diagram a research article, which means to identify the research question, the theories used, the hypothesis, the method, etc. The students, all juniors and seniors in college, were allowed to choose which article they wanted to diagram. The assignment should be easy, and it was for many of them. But I noticed that a handful of students decided to diagram some article without identifying what article they chose. How on earth am I supposed to check their responses about the article without knowing what article to check them against? Do they expect the grader to take their word for it, that what they say is Article X's research question is in fact Article X's research question? Do they expect the grader to read every article they could have chosen and figure out which one they're talking about? Common sense, people. If the assignment says you get to choose, you have to identify what you chose. 

I don't want to sound like a jerk or like I think I know everything. I just want to know what happened to basic human intelligence. George Carlin once said, "Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider!" Funny. Sad. But all too true...which makes it even more depressing. 

For the record, if you are of that part of humanity who lacks common sense, and you do or do not know it, I will still love you. I will probably roll my eyes and throw up my hands in exasperation more than once when I'm around you...but I will still love you all the same, even when you don't take to my attempts to beat that common sense into your thick skull =)