Fact, Opinion, or...?

Samuel, our seven-year-old first grader, is learning to write papers. Short papers, of course. Five sentence paragraphs, specifically. For the past few weeks, he's been learning about facts and opinions. He's written a couple of papers where he expresses an opinion on something--a story, for example--supported by facts.

We have a sign in our kitchen that reads: "Money can not buy happiness. But money can buy cows. And cows give milk. And milk makes ice cream. And ice cream makes you happy." Sam read me that sign the other day and said, "The last sentence is an opinion."

Smart kid.

I know a lot of people a lot older than him who can't make that kind of distinction.

In the past few years, it seems that the line between fact and opinion has become increasingly blurred. The idea that some things are objectively true is rather tenuous in our collective consciousness. Perhaps more problematic, the idea that something is true or false depending on who believes it (or how many people believe it) is increasingly at the forefront of common conversation. And probably most worrisome is the idea that strongly-held opinions are just as good as facts. 

“My opinion is just as good as yours!” and “I have the right to my own opinion!” are increasingly presented in public discourse in the place of objective facts or evidence-based statements.

But opinions--even devoutly believed opinions built over a lifetime--aren’t the same thing as facts.

Let’s look at an example. I might claim that the Denver Broncos are the greatest franchise in the NFL. I could argue that based on their history, the stability of the team, their uniforms, or any number of other factors, the Broncos are the best. Would I be justified in that argument?

Sure I would. You may disagree, of course. But the fact is that there is no definitive measure of what makes an NFL team “great”. You can talk about won-lost record, or offensive production, or defensive efficiency, or record against the spread, or any of a dozen or more other things in support of your argument for your team, but none of those (nor all of them together) defines what makes a team “great”. There is no objective standard for “greatness”. 

To my chagrin, I have to confess that someone else could argue that the Dallas Cowboys are the greatest franchise in the NFL, and they would be every bit as justified in that opinion. And that’s exactly what it would be: an opinion. Different than mine, certainly, but no less valid.

Now let’s think about the Sun. Here is a statement: The Sun is a yellow star.

This statement is not an opinion. It's a fact. The Sun is a star, and it is yellow in color. This statement is based on evidence and centuries of scientific understanding. There is, in fact, an established astronomical criterion for what a yellow star is in terms of mass, luminosity, temperature, etc. The Sun meets that criterion. Plus, if you look at the Sun (not directly and not for an extended period, of course), it’s yellow.

Now, I had a student say a couple of weeks ago that she thought that the Sun was white. Factually that’s not correct. There are white stars out there, but they’re a little larger and a little hotter than our Sun. On the other hand, the Sun is very brightly incandescent and could easily be perceived as white at a glance. Plus, the Sun emits white light, the kind that separates into all the colors of the rainbow. Thus the statement “The Sun is white”, while not technically correct, could still be considered a legitimate observation, and an opinion based on that statement would not be unreasonable.

But what if someone claimed that the Sun was purple?

This statement simply is not true, and it can be easily demonstrated that it’s not true. Sure, depending on atmospheric conditions, the Sun may appear to be different colors: yellow, white, orange, or even red...but not purple. Astronomically speaking, there are no purple stars (and there’s a solid scientific reason for that). There is simply no reasonable argument to support the assertion that the Sun might be purple. It just isn’t. 

Still, someone could go ahead and say, “I believe that the Sun is purple. That’s my opinion.”

Except that it’s not an opinion. Not really. Because the statement is objectively false.

The statement “The Sun is purple” is not fact, nor is it an opinion. It’s a falsehood.

And therein lies the problem. In today’s America, we have too often elevated opinions to the level of facts, and falsehoods to the level of opinions. People demand that those around them respect statements and positions that are demonstrably false because they are presented as opinions, and everyone has a right to their own opinion. 

Some people may say, for example, “I’m not going to get my children vaccinated because I believe vaccines cause autism.” They expect--nay, demand--that those around them respect that position because of their deeply-held and forcefully-expressed conviction. But vaccines do not cause autism, and they never have. There is a large body of independent, peer-reviewed scientific evidence debunking the idea that vaccines cause autism, and none whatsoever supporting the idea that they do. So the statement “Vaccines cause autism” is not a fact, nor is it an opinion. It’s a lie.

It’s a lie, and it deserves to be recognized and treated as such.

The idea that all statements or positions can be categorized as either facts or opinions is simply not true. Some of them are lies--comforting lies, perhaps, or convenient lies, or well-accepted lies. But lies nonetheless.

Some things are entirely subjective. These things are matters of opinion. Other things are objectively true, and some things are objectively false. These are not matters of opinion; they are matters of fact. 

Calling a falsehood an “opinion” doesn’t make it one.