You will often see me mocking or criticizing what I consider to be flawed common sense regarding wisdom teeth.

It will be wise to explain a bit more what I mean by this. As always, keep in mind that this is just my opinion, and just like Diego Velázquez was not a better painter than Peter Brueghel the Elder, I am not a better dentist than yours.

To sum it up: personal common sense, intuition, logic, gut feelings, hunches… are not acceptable ways to understand and apply science. Because science, and this includes dentistry, is often counter-intuitive and contradicts common sense.

On Photosynthesis (1968), Isaac Asimov, popular science writer, complained about this. He mentioned how holding certain preconceived common sense ideas hindered scientific discoveries. When glucose is “burned” in the powerhouse of the cell to produce energy, two things are produced: CO2 and water. However, common sense implies that if organisms liberate water, it must be the same water they are taking from their environment: plants through the roots, animals by drinking and whatnot. Holding this flawed, common sense idea, made understanding cell energy production more difficult.

We can probably find countless similar examples in every scientific field, and beyond science too. In dentistry, for instance, some people will argue that amalgam fillings are bad because of mercury, or that fluoride in dental care products is bad too, because, for them, common sense implies that such “toxic” substances can never be good. And guess what? They are wrong. Amalgam is not toxic and fluoride in dental care products is perfectly safe, and effective to prevent cavities.

My apologies for getting into unnecessary trouble by discussing those things. In Spanish: por meterme en camisas de once varas. As far as this project is concerned, yes: flawed common sense is also a very real problem when it comes to understanding wisdom teeth.

Common sense easily implies that if they look impacted on an x-ray, something is terribly wrong with them. So you better get them removed as soon as you can, before they destroy your second molars, ruin your orthodontic treatment or explode with the energy of a metric ton of TNT. And this is wrong: wisdom teeth do not explode, cause crowding or destroy second molars. If asymptomatic and healthy, they shouldn’t be removed. Even when impacted. This is basic, many dentists are not taught it during their training, and when thrown to deal with the real world, they may end up applying this flawed common sense, and recommending the removal of asymptomatic and healthy wisdom teeth. In other words: many dentists recommend removing perfectly healthy and asymptomatic wisdom teeth, not because it’s a good idea to do so, but simply because, to them, they “look bad” on the x-ray when they are impacted, so “logically”, PERSONALLY, they feel like it will be better to remove them. And no: not only this is a brutal and unnecessarily invasive approach. It also contradicts multiple official clinical guidelines.

For Charles Darwin, common sense implied that whites were “more evolved” than blacks or Australian aboriginals, so whites missing their wisdom teeth more frequently than those ethnic groups was, “logically”, a more evolved trait. And this is pure nonsense.

The German anatomist Robert Wierdersheim was wrong on believing that fourth molars were a thing in primitive humans. But the matter is that he believed so, and he also believed, following some awesome “common sense” logic, that if fourth molars had recently disappeared, it was only a matter of time for third molars to disappear too. Again, nonsense!

Common sense tells us that removing the wisdom teeth earlier in life is going to be easier than doing it later, simply because younger patients are going to heal faster and better than older patients. As explained on the dedicated article, this idea is often wrong.

Some sources, guilty of being “more Catholic than the pope” (in Spanish: más papistas que el papa), will oppose the removal of wisdom teeth for fear of it causing jaw development issues. Common sense may imply that indeed, the surgery could have some impact on bone development. This idea is equally wrong, as explained on the corresponding article. If we are going to oppose the unnecessary removals of wisdom teeth, let’s use real facts to back our point!

Don’t let these false ideas blind you, my dear reader. Understand that wisdom teeth are nothing more and nothing less than teeth, like any other, and that’s it.

I will close this brief but relevant article by quoting none other than Albert Einstein. Being the genius that he was, he was well aware of how deceiving common sense can be. He’s quoted to have said: Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.

What a wise man!

Saludos cordales.