Stroman
Diamond Member
It's hard not to do when people insist that 2 + 2 = 10. Sometimes the opinions here are that far off and they refuse to believe 2 + 2 = 4.
Agreed, but I have found that you often can't convince that person that 2 + 2 does NOT equal 10. Any adult of reasonable intelligence, who has the facts available to them, and still concludes that 2 + 2 = 10 is not likely to be convinced by you reiterating the facts. And you don't need to convince them. Everyone else already knows, and you now have evidence that you shouldn't trust that person's opinion on mathematical subjects.
A silly opinion is still useful.
I don't disagree. I'm not a fan of 'censorship'.
All I'm effectively saying is that opinions need critical appraising. I would hope that the people on here are intelligent enough and well-versed enough to recognise the difference between a well-formed view and one that is poorly-formed. The forum members that I've met have more than capable!
At large though, it worries me that critical thinking skills are not focussed on in schools. If they were, some of the adversarial arguments that people have may not occur. If two parties can accept that an opposing standpoint is valid but they disagree, that's fine.
I'll take an example. When I was at University, I knew a guy about my age who had very strong political views. I had equally strong political views but we had reached almost polar-opposite conclusions. We discovered through polite discourse and genuine discussion that we had read the same books and waded through the same reasoning and simply arrived at different conclusions based on personal factors. I could absolutely respect that, even though I disagreed vehemently with his assessment.
What I'm not saying is that there needs to be any censorship. I'm simply saying that whilst everyone is entitled to an opinion, opinions should be dealt with responsibly. The weight of evidence, experience and knowledge should inform the validity of the conclusions and trying to use the word 'opinion' when overwhelmed with contradictory evidence as a way of deflecting your incorrectness, is disingenuous.
Agreed re: people's critical thinking skills.