Common Sense to Scientific Research Qurstions

Arunan Chandrasekharan:
Of Common Sense and Scientific Research Questions. Ref. CUBE Chatshaala 24 January 2024.

@⁨shalinisharma Jamia Millia University Delhi⁩ asks:

"…common sense based on ones experience with mangoes? Can we correlate it with science?

For eg: If mango trees in delhi are flowering in the month of March, can we expect ripen mango to be available in market by April?

If yes, could it be exported mangoes from southern India?

How can we relate availability of mangoes at different times, all over the country, with latitude?
For your comments on Common Sense Leading to Scientific Questions and Science Research.

What are the relations between Common Sense and Scientific Sense/Scientific Approach? @VickramC @damitr JT D @sahamata @truthsi @karnamdpdurga and others. @Nagarjuna

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To repeat and amplify am answer shared elsewhere:

“Knowledge is a deadly friend
When in the hands of fools”

Rest assured that traders already ‘know’, or have ready access to, countrywide information on the state of availability of mangoes in their various profitable categories. It is in their interest that the buying public does not know.

Therefore, any information system that purports to make this data commonly available, including to both primary producers and common consumers, must take into account the effort (and money) that will go into destroying its utility.

The ingenuous question,

therefore need to be tempered with some qualification, “how can we build robust reporting systems, linked to mapping, that are resistant and self correcting to attempts by malign elements (linked to monopolistic trade and commerce) to either introduce false data or to create false insecurity around such reporting systems?”

By framing the question more precisely, we are able to almost naturally create the building blocks of a desirable reporting system.

Note that, as is logical for any fixed region production goods with a very short storage life (in the case of mango, such geolocational definitions are linked accurately to specific varieties) with consumption that is more scattered, transportation and storage plays a major role in fixing a fair or accurate landed cost. Therefore, a good (as in ‘useful’) mapping system will also include cost inputs for transportation and storage.

When this kind of data is available across a consolidated dashboard, the possibility of accurate discovery of both fair price at production points and at purchase points is increased, or, at least, becomes a reasonable possibility.

The scientific value, as in the original enquiry, is also possible to discover. Over time, the mapping system will become heavily used, with addition of more data points on a regular basis.

It will then be feasible to extrapolate how particular varieties of mango are faring in traditional growing areas, and how the geographical bounds of those areas are changing over time.

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Observing regularities and variations that we see everyday and even correlating them with one another is common sense.

But, providing an explanations of regularities and variations of phenomena (such as mango flowering/fruiting) using unobservable latitide/longitude/altitude is science. Science brings in model based reasoning. Lat.Long cannot be thought about by mere observations and correlations. The model of earth as a sphere and such a globe being sliced with latitudes and longitudes is an imaginary construction imposed on the globe.

If we take science is somewhat equivalent to model based reasoning, then we explain correlations between observations derived from experience using science, we don’t correlate experiences with science.

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How can we simplify this account of yours? @vvcstemplay