Opinions vs. Facts

Why are opinions and facts so hard to keep straight?

What’s a fact and what’s an opinion? “Art” by the author.

Is it a fact that climates are changing? I believe the science on this one but many people don’t. One of my ex-academic supervisors (and a PhD holder in economics) is a climate skeptic and put up a post on Facebook yesterday with an interview with another academic climate skeptic. Look! There’s proof there’s no academic consensus! He’s the one who taught me that deferring to a single Expert Opinion to make an argument is fallacious. While we disagree, at least we are having a discussion about which bits of evidence we listen to in order to form our opinions. His opinion is that climate change is over-hyped. Mine is that it’s under-hyped, if that’s a thing.

This week, my roommate (who has a PhD in statistics), argued that the jury was out on evolution because everyone was working from different facts. One of his facts was that we don’t know enough and some things only God can know. As a life-long atheist, I beg to differ. While the theory of evolution has evolved (pun totally intended) since it was first put forth by Darwin, it has hardly been thrown out. To have him dismiss it as “only a theory” by a trained scientist blew my mind. I think I yelled a little bit, and he backed down. I’m not sure. It was all in French and my ability to yell in French may be somewhat impaired compared to my ability to yell in English. I think he was…