Are people ignorant today about the real world?

[The Fall of Man]

It seems that many people here (mostly women and younger people in general) demand a study of some sort before they will believe something. It's as if they have lost the ability to reach a common observational truth on their own. They have outsourced their own ability to think to the academics (which is a scary thought). This is very troubling when you examine it. In other words, these type of people only believe the written word, and not the collective common experiences that people have had. And to take it one step further, they are subject to those that control the flow of information. And who ever controls information, controls the beliefs of these people.
@Just me
You did not understand my question. I am not against proof. I'm against people who have lost the ability to think for themselves, in other words, critical thinking. Much of life does not need studies to understand it. You mentioned intelligence. An intelligent person will observe, notice patterns and trends, understand possibilities from probabilities. And be able to reach a well thought out conclusion without there being a need for a study. Hell, observation is one of the principles of science. I'm not talking Philosophy here, but critical thought.
@O.o
Generalizations are the foundation of wisdom. Science, Medicine, Math all subscribe to this principle. In order to under the small picture, one must first be able to understand the big one.
@Sexy B@$t@rd
I hear what you are saying, but your example could apply to something that you and I may agree on. Growing up in public housing must be difficult, Less space, lower socioeconomic group, most likely black or latino, in general....just a tough upbringing all around. Now I don't need a study to know these things. I have observed them my whole life. Never the less, yes the collective could be wrong, but not very often.

[crookedjeans829]

Not I, no.
I read many things on the internet, for instance.
I know it's all true.

[Donald]

An example could be....
We are told the currency we use is "money".
We are not told the currency needs our labor to give it value, therefore, since it has no self containing value, its NOT money.
Where common sense can come in:
The currency is used to exchange our labor into a product, The value is within our labor and the product, the currency only represents the value. Did you work 'before' receiving the currency? If yes, then you used your time/energy and labor,creating the value before receiving the currency you were paid. If you create the value through working, then you are not receiving value (income) because you have to work first to create it!

Another one is "marriage", the youngsters are being programmed its acceptable to have many then when you want to get "married" you exchange wedding vows and rings. But....common sense should indicate the exchanging of each other for intimacy with many, will create unwanted emotions and heartache beyond imaginable. Then how else could a male and female become one and avoid the unwanted thoughts? You become one with each other BEFORE being intimate with many, not after!

[Silver]

To make a fair and informed decision you need to compile as much info as possible.

Taking someone group's word for it is not enough. To not study is to be ignorant.

[O.o]

Collective common experiences are not enough evidence to make sweeping generalizations as many people do. I don't really trust studies to make generalizations either, though.

[Lacy Girl]

I don't see how this is a female or young persons thing. but I get what you mean about the amount of random pointless studies coming out, however there are a few reasons for this. My mum works as a civil servant and does government ordenence and statistic surveys. Basically she will get a list of address and have to go round getting them to do questionaires which build up info for the goverment e.g questionaires to people on benefits (mainly checking why they are on them, how often they look for work, how many kids, how do they find their way of life etc), they also have questionaires to people not on benefits that find out things like issues with public transport, taxes etc etc ordenence and stat surveys are a way the government uses to gain info from the general public however the majority is anoymous and several of the findings will be linked together in reports and published. Another way a lot of meaningless stats and findings appear is through science groups that are government funded. By this i mean the things you hear like tomatoes are good for you as we found bla increased/decreased this or that or tomatoes are bad for you as we found this out in a trial consisting of so many people - the reason for these are that they get a certain amount of funding each year and it is easier to study something that will give a quicker end result (a finding they can publish) that carrying on something more meaningful for years that may not produce a negative or positive result - they can lose money for this - but if they show they are doing things and coming up with 'answers' then their funding will stay at a steady level - it is also a way for them to increase funding by saying they have to look into this and that.
Other reasons are merely for money making for example coming up with fantastic new diets like the bullcrap blood type diet - our findings should that these blood types do better with this food etc (i guess this is where the females fall flat).
Like you i think a lot of this is ridiculous and people who believe it all need a dose of common sense. thinking about it I can see why you made the point towards women and younger people because the majority of these pointless findings are in magazines and certain websites that females and younger people would be more likely to come across or read meaning it is more likely to get stuck in their head.
However you need to remember this isn't a new thing, a lot of people still believe old wives tales like rubbing potatoes on warts to get rid of them and i think that a lot of these 'studies' are a kind of escalation of old wives tales - the information does come from somewhere but that doesn't mean it is exactly correct.
Proper studies and experiments require control groups which most don't have and they require exact conclusions rather than just ruling some things out and then pointing at the most likely cause or answer. For most of them that come out you can find some reason why they have done it, whether it is to influence people in a positive way by getting them to make healthy choices, promote brand names (certain foods, vitamins, exercise products or exploit naive people to sign up for something or other. Increased social awareness through media, internet etc has made stats and findings more available to people and many companies and people use it to their advantage however like i said many government surveys release their statistics too so some of it can be reliable but i would say that would be a minority, but you can distinguish the actual facts from the rubbish if you know how to look for it (it is usually in the wording they use and if it is under 100 people and there are no control groups then i dont see how they can actually use it as fact - like a lot of commercials will say 99% of people approved this and they only looked at 50 people and most of them would have been specifically selected not chosen at random).

Sorry its a bit long but there was an interesting point in your question

[Sexy B@$t@rd]

Your "common experience" may not be all that common. When you say that you and all of your pals have noticed something, has it occurred to you that your perspective might be distorted by the fact that you have experienced only a small part of the world, and that your friends, who are all just like you (that's why they are your friends) have the same limited experiences as you?

The "common experience" of a minority person living in public housing and being raised by a single, alcoholic parent will be different than the common experience of a middle class white person raised by two parent professions just a few blocks away.

This is the problem of relying upon anecdotal evidence; your sample size is usually too small (just the expedience of your friends) to be considered to reflect the "common" experience of a random sample of the general population.

[O]

Yes sir. People use media lies, fiction and stereotypes as a reference for their surroundings. Society is pretty screwed up.