Why Your Opinion Isn’t As Valid As You Think It Is
By: Christopher Laine
Tags: Politics, Philosophy, Science, Religion, Life Lessons

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

We’ve all heard it nine ways from Sunday. Someone voices a half-baked or uneducated or hyperbolic opinion (often at a family gathering), which, when backed into an intellectual corner to justify their nonsensical belief, counter with this line

“My opinion is as valid as anyone’s!”

We’ve heard it before, and we feel frustrated, stymied by this truism of democratic life. Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and yes, their opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. We’ve been told so ad nauseum over the course of our lives.

From Flat Earthers to Anti-Vaxxers, to Creationists, to New Agers and pandemic and climate change deniers, we feel trapped from refuting their uneducated and ignorant opinions by the basic idea that all opinions are valid, and so cannot be refuted without our sinking to the level of some kind of intellectual authoritarianism.

Nope

Except that’s not what anyone ever said. No one ever said everyone’s opinions are as valid as anyone else’s. Over time, we’ve conflated two concepts into one, and that’s our mistake.

What you are ARE entitled to is an opinion of your own. This is very true. This is referred to as Freedom of Thought, which can be summed up thusly.

Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience or ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others’ viewpoints. — Wikipeida, the great and powerful

This is a pretty fundamental foundation of any democracy. Everyone is allowed to hold an opinion of their own, and they are entitled to hold this opinion because all individuals should be free to think and feel as they see fit.

However, this does not make that opinion as “valid” as anyone else’s.

Let’s see why.

Why Your Opinion is NOT as valid as any other

So why is your opinion not as valid any anyone else’s? Simply put: Expertise.

Let’s work this through by way of an example:

You own a car, and it starts making a nasty rattling sound. So, you take your car to your mechanic, a person who has years and years of expertise in diagnosing and fixing car troubles just like yours. The mechanic tells you your radiator is shot, and needs replacing.

Along comes me. I have no real world experience in fixing cars. I don’t really know much about your make and model, and I’m not all that good with telling a radiator from a muffler. Now, you tell me what your mechanic said, and I tell you “Oh, I have a feeling it’s something to do with your brakes.”

Okay, so now we have two opinions: your mechanic’s and mine. Is my opinion just as valid as your mechanics? Sure, I’m entitled to think it’s your brakes, but that doesn’t make my opinion as valid as the mechanic’s, now does it? Why not? Because I have no expertise in fixing cars. I am simply stating an uneducated opinion, and based on all logic and reason, you’d be foolish to trust my opinion on par with that of your mechanic.

You see, opinions increase in validity as they are measured against expertise. There is a large chasm between having an opinion and the validity of the opinion in question.

The opinions of scientists on climate change, on infectious disease, on just about anything related to the sciences invariably are MORE valid than the opinions of some clown on YouTube or some Facebook group of anti-vaxxers.

Not because the scientists are better people or entitled to special treatment, but simply their expertise in their field make their opinions of infinitely more value and validity than someone who heard something and thinks it sounds about right.

Why Opinions Do Not Trump Facts

Everyone is entitled to (their) own opinion, but not (their) own facts. — Daniel Moynihan

Let’s sashay into another realm of opinion-holding. This is an increasingly troublesome one these days, in what is appearing increasingly like a world where facts no longer matter.

Let’s take another example:

You’re a school teacher. You tell me and other parents at a PTA meeting that you want to teach kids about math, that 2+2 = 4. Well, I don’t like this one bit. My religion teaches that the Lord made 2 + 2 = 9, or at least that’s what my pastor / imam / rabbi / etc has explained to me.

I don’t want you and your anti-religious beliefs being taught to my children, and bring a protest against the school by members of my congregation because what you’re teaching runs counter to my religious beliefs, my opinions about what is true and what is not.

But of course my opinion / belief is nonsensical. Religious beliefs are all well and good, but they do not make 2 + 2 = 9. 2 + 2 = 4 is a FACT. What I am upset about is that this FACT doesn’t verify or validate my beliefs.

This is the difference between an opinion and fact. Facts are verifiable. Facts are (outside of quantum mechanics, that is) immutable. Facts are objective reality, and thus are the foundation of all rational thought, for they are reality as it is.

Facts are the ultimate in expertise, for they are independent of and stand above anyone’s beliefs or opinions.

I may believe I can fly off the roof of my house, but the facts of 1.) the pull of the earth’s gravity and 2.) that humans can’t fly by flapping their arms will put my belief in its place.

When our opinions fly in the face of objective reality, it is our opinions which are spurious, not the facts themselves.

Just because I want to believe that 2 + 2 = 9 — irrespective of the reason I want to believe this — does not set my opinion on anything close to the benchmark of facts. I’m wrong, and the facts are right.

Just because I don’t like facts, or they are not aligned to my opinion-based worldview, this doesn’t make the facts wrong. It just makes me wrong for not accepting reality for what it is.

All Opinions are Based upon Bias

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”

― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

Every opinion you hold is based upon some form of bias. You may not like this notion, but it’s true.

Take any opinion or belief you or I hold dear. I’m not talking about facts, or the acceptance of facts, but opinions you hold which cannot be 100% verified by facts. You hold that opinion and/or belief because of some amount of bias, either for or against an opinion on the subject. The less it can be verified by facts, the more bias is involved.

Are dogs better than cats? Bias. Was Jesus a Christian? Bias. Is there systemic injustice in the world? Bias. Opinions can be backed up by facts, and the more that fact verifies the opinion, the less of an opinion it becomes.

Bias is our unfair or skewed preference to one argument / idea / belief / group over another. Whenever we take an opinion, we are applying some level of bias when we do so. That’s all opinions are: Our preference of one thing over another.

I don’t state that it’s my opinion that sparrows can fly. This is a fact. I might state that sparrows fly more beautifully than any other bird, and now we’ve drifted out of fact and into my aesthetic preference.

You don’t state that millions died of bubonic plague across the world in the 14th century AD, known collectively as the Black Death. This is a historical fact. You may state that it happened because of God’s wrath, and now you’re into your own religious beliefs.

The closer an opinion or belief is to verifiable fact, the less of an opinion it becomes. The further it drifts from facts, the more bias we can find in the holding of this opinion.

In The End

“It makes people feel good to say that all opinions are equal, because somehow, they correlate equality of opinions with equality of human dignity. And that’s exactly where lies one of the most disgraceful and harmful perceptual errors of the society, that leads to an unfit government.”

― Abhijit Naskar, The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth

When all is said and done, we must respect all individuals and their inalienable right to think and believe as they wish. We have opinions we cherish, so can anyone else.

That said, it should not stop us from feeling perfectly justified in dismantling this fallacy that all opinions are equal and valid. They are not. Opinions based in little to no fact, opinions overrun in bias and ignorance are not equal to nor in any way as valid as those expressed with as little bias and as much fact as possible.

While we must respect others’ opinions as their right, this does not stop us from using rationality, logic, and and yes, argument to show how their opinion is not equal to or as valid as any other. More now than any recent time in history, the truth and facts must matter and be counted as above all opinions or belief.

We have allowed this nonsensical notion of equality of opinion under any and all circumstances to subsume rational thought and educated expertise. It is well time we discard this notion, even when it means in doing so we must discard some amount of such nonsense from within ourselves.

The very best thing about opinions? You can always, always change them.