Common sense changed through education. And continues to change through education. It should not be through manipulation.
But common sense itself is a vague term. It cannot be defined because we are all distinct and different individuals with different sets of beliefs and different levels of intelligence and education and interpretation of the data placed before us. What one might consider common sense, another might consider absolute rubbish. And that is all based on one's education and beliefs. For example, the US had a brain surgeon, a leading brain surgeon and scientist run for the GOP nomination, who believes the pyramids were grain silos. Now, common sense dictates that the pyramids were tombs. Because that is what we were taught based on the evidence. But he was taught and believes that they were grain silos. That is his common sense. And this is an educated fellow, a man who achieved amazing things after studying "science". This is why arguments about "common sense" and trying to align it with science becomes a very vague term.
Certainly, Einstein changed our ideas about space, but Einstein himself rejected his most famous theory, because he did not believe it was possible. It was scientists who came after him who worked for decades to prove him right.
My concern is the belief that some hold that scientists are always right, that they should always be believed because they are using the scientific method. That to question the science itself becomes an affront to scientists. In short, they react the same way as the most devoutly religious when the existence of their God is questioned. Like they did with Einstein when he rejected quantum field theory. They treated him like he was a hack and a has-been. In that sense, scientists can and do manipulate others in the scientific field in various ways,
from fear of speaking out to being ridiculed and ostracised by the scientific community.
So is it possible to follow the path of Einstein? To do so, you cannot be a crank; you must be a well-trained physicist, literate in current theories and aware of their limitations. And you must insist on absolute clarity in your own work, rather than follow any fad or popular direction. Given the pressures of competition for academic positions, to follow Einstein’s path is to risk the price that he paid: unemployment in spite of abundant talent and skill at the craft of theoretical physics.
In my whole career as a theoretical physicist, I have known only a handful of colleagues who truly can be said to follow Einstein’s path. They are driven, as Einstein was, by a moral need for clear understanding. In everything they do, these few strive continually to invent a new theory of principle that could satisfy the strictest demands of coherence and consistency, without regard to fashion or the professional consequences. Most have paid for their independence, in a harder career path than equally talented scientists who follow the research agendas of the big professors.
Let us be frank and admit that most of us have neither the courage nor the patience to emulate Einstein. We should instead honor Einstein by asking whether we can do anything to ensure that in the future those few who do follow Einstein’s path, who approach science as uncompromisingly as he did, have less risk of unemployment, the sort he suffered at the beginning of his career, and less risk of the marginalization he endured at the end. If we can do this, if we can make the path easier for those few who do follow him, we may make possible a revolution in science that even Einstein failed to achieve.
Einstein may have changed our perception of space and time. But he paid the price for it in the end. And it was the physics community that made him pay it because he would not adhere to their thinking and he questioned them for the flaws he found in their work and theories.
]
