Opinion vs Fact

Rant (with plenty of opinion) ahead. 

Many governments have greatly overreached their powers and disagreed with experts on science and policy. (Covid)

They force populations to do their will while they don’t follow their own public policy. (Boris’ parties)

Or they use a situation to allow them to move forward on their political agenda. (Putin, Ukraine)

Everyone should be allowed have their own opinions. 

That’s democracy. 

And, up to a point, depending on critical criteria, and quality scientific consensus (now that’s a dirty word atm) about community health, to make their own decisions as to whether they should get a jab, wear a mask, or be allowed to travel. 

I am cool with speculation, opinion and debate. 

But those who know me well, know I am a stickler for ‘proof’ over ‘opinion’. 

There’s plenty of conspiracy ‘theories’ that have turned out to be reality. They were ‘proven’ to be true (or statistically closer to the ‘truth’) with data. 

But there’s WAY more theories that have turned out to be totally bonkers. Again, proven to be false with data. 

Yes, there’s a bunch of things which can NEVER be proven because they are in an unprovable realm. They are neither fact nor fiction. (Eg. religion)

My dilemma is that I see too many people with wild opinions, suggesting they have the ‘truth’, and that if anyone disagrees with them then they are the devil incarnate. 

Because there is so much agenda bias, mis-information and dis-information available to everyone now, we all should now be backing any ‘truths’ with with links to the verified data. 

This is why newspapers used to tag an unproven or unprovable article as ‘opinion’ and show multiple verified references when reporting facts. This IS the job of a journalist. Otherwise it is called propaganda or PR. 

This is why scientific documents are followed by a lengthy list of references to back up their ideas so that the reader can see why it is (or isn’t) so. 

Therefore comments without any confirmed data should now be considered as ‘speculation’, ‘an hypothesis’ or ‘opinion’. 

A recent post of mine got a few noses out of joint because I made a simple statement that ‘most’ people cannot understand basic statistics and that those who can, often read the stats with a bias to ‘prove’ their ‘opinion’. 

That statement about statistics WAS interestingly backed up with statistics. 

Unfortunately that means we have to be exceedingly skilled at interpreting what is presented to us.

Is it ‘fact’ (provable with data) or ‘opinion’ (not proven, yet)?

MOST of us do NOT have that skill. (88% of us btw)

This is why I believe (opinion) that quality education (in all fields) of the human race is our number one goal. 

The higher our knowledge and learning, the better we will be able to discern between fact and fiction, make better decisions and therefore create a better global society. 

Rant over… (discuss on FB)