Conventional wisdom (CW) is a term used to describe ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public or by experts in a field. The term implies that the ideas or explanations, though widely held, are unexamined and, hence, may be reevaluated upon further examination or as events unfold.

The term is often credited^[1] to the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who used it in his 1958 book The Affluent Society:

It will be convenient to have a name for the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability, and it should be a term that emphasizes this predictability. The Affluent Society is a 1958 book by Harvard Economist John Kenneth Galbraith. I shall refer to these ideas henceforth as the conventional wisdom. ^[2]

The term in actuality is much older and dates at least to 1838. ^[3] "Conventional wisdom" was used in a number of other works prior to Galbraith, occasionally in a positive^[4] or neutral^[5] sense, but more often pejoratively. ^[6]

Conventional wisdom is not necessarily true. Many urban legends, for example, are accepted on the basis of being "conventional wisdom". An urban legend or urban myth is a form of modern Folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them Conventional wisdom is also often seen as an obstacle to introducing new theories, explanations, and so as an obstacle that must be overcome by such revisionism. For the denial and distortion of well-established historical facts see Historical revisionism (negationism. This is to say, that despite new information to the contrary, conventional wisdom has a property analogous to inertia that opposes the introduction of contrary belief; sometimes to the point of absurd denial of the new information set by persons strongly holding an outdated (conventional wisdom) view. The vis insita or innate force of matter is a power of resisting by which every body as much as in it lies endeavors to preserve in its present state whether it be of rest or of moving This inertia is due to conventional wisdom being made of ideas that are convenient, appealing and deeply assumed by the public, who hangs on to them even as they grow outdated. The unavoidable outcome is these ideas will eventually not match reality at all, so conventional wisdom will be violently shaken until it doesn't conflict reality so blatantly.

The concept of conventional wisdom also is applied or implied in political senses, often related closely with the phenomenon of Talking Points. A talking point is a Neologism for an idea which may or may not be factual usually compiled in a short list with summaries of a speaker's agenda for public or private engagements It is used pejoratively to refer to the idea that statements which are repeated over and over become conventional wisdom regardless of whether or not they are true.

In a more general sense, it is used to refer to the accepted truth about something which nearly no-one would argue about, and so is used as a gauge (or well-spring) of normative behavior or belief, even within a professional context. One such example was conventional wisdom in 1960, even among most doctors, dictated that smoking was not particularly harmful to one's health. Another: It might be used in this manner discussing a technical matter such as the conventional wisdom was that a man would suffer fatal injuries if he experienced more than eighteen G-Forces in an aerospace vehicle. g-force (also G-force, g-load) is a measurement of an object's Acceleration expressed in g s This article is about the field of research and industry for the corporation see The Aerospace Corporation Aerospace comprises the (John Stapp shattered that myth by repeatedly withstanding far more in his research—peaking above 46 Gs). John Paul Stapp, MD PhD Colonel USAF (Ret ( 11 July 1910 &ndash 13 November 1999) was a pioneer in studying the effects of acceleration

Conventional wisdom may itself be the subject of urban legends. For example, it is widely believed that conventional wisdom prior to Christopher Columbus held that the world was flat, when in actuality scholars had long accepted that the earth is a sphere. Christopher Columbus (1451 &ndash May 20 1506 was an Italian Navigator, colonizer

It should be noted that when conventional wisdoms are overthrown, outranked, or outflanked by new ideas, and the new conventional wisdom becomes established in place of the previous one, there may yet be considerable remaining affiliation to the previous regime.

References

See also

• Argumentum ad populum
• Boiling frog
• Common sense
• Consensus reality
• Social constructionism
• Truthiness

An argumentum ad populum ( Latin: "appeal to the people" in Logic, is a fallacious argument that concludes a Proposition to be true The boiling frog story states that a Frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water it will jump out Common sense (or when used attributively as an Adjective, commonsense, common-sense, or commonsensical) based on a strict construction Consensus reality (rarely or mistakenly called "consensual reality" is an approach to answering the question 'What is real ?' a profound philosophical question Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in Truthiness is a term first used in its current satirical sense by American television comedian Stephen Colbert in 2005 to describe

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