Why are the answers that flow from a scientific approach more reliable than those based on intuition and common sense?

Answer 1

Many people like to believe that they have some instinctive or built-in understanding of the world which infallibly leads them to make correct conclusions based on intuition and common sense, but this is an illusion. There are many things in this world that cannot be understood merely on the basis of common sense. The results of quantum mechanics, for example, fly in the face of what we expect on the basis of common sense. The actual complexity of the universe exceeds what we are going to pick up on the basis of our normal, mundane lives. People who depend upon common sense are often wrong, sometimes catastrophically wrong.