42 SCIENCE (and common sense) 



life with the discovery that this capacity for tasting is inherited with 

 the statistical regularity of a dominant Mendelian trait; and would 

 blaze up if this capacity could be related to other, independently 

 determinable, data— e.g., the presence or absence or variable constitu- 

 tion of some particular enzyme. 



DATA AND JUDGMENT 



Common sense deals primarily with what is experienced by all man- 

 kind; science encompasses, in addition, what is experienced, in the 

 laboratory, by but a few. This distinction seems unimportant: the 

 special experience of scientists is potentially available to all willing 

 to enter the laboratory. The fundamental distinction between the 

 data acceptable to science and those acceptable to common sense 

 arises from what has repeatedly been stressed: the involvement of 

 judgment in our use of the three criteria for the selection of subject 

 matter shared by common sense and science. 



An "object in tlie sky" judged to be an alien spaceship is a datum 

 of interest to astronomers; classified as a case of mass hallucination 

 it is, at most, of marginal interest to psychologists. Thus long before 

 our judgments determine hoio we arrange our data, they determine 

 ichat we accept as data. Like the principles of jurisprudence, our 

 criteria for the selection of subject matter offer general guide lines 

 but not detailed rulings. And even while the scientist works as de- 

 tective he must anticipate how, acting later as judge, he will inter- 

 pret the general criteria in specific rulings on tlie admissibility and 

 weight of the various possible items of evidence. A priori his wisdom 

 cannot be appraised: a posteriori his judgment passes subject to re- 

 \aew. If a scientist finds, in some particular selection of data, hitherto 

 undetected elements of continuity and determinism— we acclaim him 

 a man of genius; failing in his quest, his judgment is by us con- 

 demned—we dismiss him as a misguided fool, or a visionary who 

 sought to do what cannot be done. 



As it begins science judges the acceptability of subject matter 

 much as does common sense. As science develops— as its view of the 

 world becomes more highly elaborated— it makes these judgments 

 differently. It may then come to pay attention even to data common 

 sense would scorn: a pointer reading is, after all, a rather tri\'ial item 

 of experience to which we pay attention only as, given the theoretic 

 views of science, we grasp its significance. Made bold by successes 



