Knowledge, fact or opinion..

[six45ive]

.....how do you differentiate between them?

I ask because I read this interesting example on another website;

 

'When I took Journalism, "statement of opinion" was differentiated from "statement of fact" in that it was not demonstrable (even hypothetically) as correlating to reality. So, for example, "there is life in the universe beyond Earth" would be a statement of fact--because whether we can test it yet or not, it is testable and it is either solidly true or false--no matter what anyone thinks or says about it. Somebody is wrong, or somebody is right. It is either a correct or incorrect statement, and whether it's correct or incorrect applies to everyone equally and in the exact same way. It is not true for "some people" that there is life beyond Earth, and false for others.

 

"Fact" however is simply "a chair sitting in a room."

 

Saying "there is a chair in the room" is a statement of fact and saying "there is _no_ chair in the room" when there is would be a false "statement of fact"--NOT an "opinion." And whether we can confirm the chair is there or not (let's say we can't see into the room), the statement STILL either corresponds to objective reality or it doesn't. It is not an opinion.

 

"Opinion" would be "Beyonce is prettier than Angelina Jolie." There is no correlation to reality there we can demonstrate, it's purely subjective. Some people will like B better than A, some will like A better than B, and nobody is "wrong." THAT'S opinion.'

 

So.....is the above fact or just opinion?

[hard2miss]

Its all about percentages and probability.

 

I know it will make my head hurt like yours if I got too involved in this topic so I will wait for others to try work it out and just chip in with my statement of opinion where I think they are wrong.

[melthebell]

knowledge is power

[six45ive]

Its all about percentages and probability.

 

I know it will make my head hurt like yours if I got too involved in this topic so I will wait for others to try work it out and just chip in with my statement of opinion where I think they are wrong.

 

The conversation came about in response to Ricky Gervais' recent statement (and maybe others before him that I'm not aware of); "people are entitled to their own opinions, they're not entitled to their own facts.'

[max]

The statement "there is life in the universe beyond Earth" would be a statement of opinion until such time as it had been proven one way or another. Similarly, the statement "there is a god" is a statement of opinion as it can be neither proved nor disproved.

 

Given that, then your proposition is an opinion not a fact, in my opinion.

[melthebell]

heres some facts about onions

 

errrrrrrrrrrm

 

*gets coat*

[Alien]

The statement "there is life in the universe beyond Earth" would be a statement of opinion until such time as it had been proven one way or another. Similarly, the statement "there is a god" is a statement of opinion as it can be neither proved nor disproved.

 

Given that, then your proposition is an opinion not a fact, in my opinion.

 

But you could base a fact on scientific fact. It's a fact that life can exist elsewhere given the right conditions...you and I are proof of that, fact.

[HeadingNorth]

The statement "there is life in the universe beyond Earth" would be a statement of opinion until such time as it had been proven one way or another. Similarly, the statement "there is a god" is a statement of opinion as it can be neither proved nor disproved.

 

Given that, then your proposition is an opinion not a fact, in my opinion.

 

I think what the OP gives is a useful distinction, between something that's provable one way or the other, and something that is merely subjective opinion. Perhaps we should distinguish between a statement of fact, a statement of unproven truth, and a mere opinion. "There is life beyond the Earth" would be a statement of unproven truth, but it is, theoretically, provable one way or the other - or at least, provable one way. You could prove it true by actually finding life beyond the Earth. I'm not sure how you could prove it false.

[six45ive]

The statement "there is life in the universe beyond Earth" would be a statement of opinion until such time as it had been proven one way or another. Similarly, the statement "there is a god" is a statement of opinion as it can be neither proved nor disproved.

 

This seems to be where (if the author of the OP statement is correct) people misunderstand what is and isn't an opinion.

I think that what they're saying is that a statement of fact can be either true or false and is proven to be true or false when we have gained enough knowledge through testing and verification to be proved wrong or right.

Hence both these statements would be statements of fact; 'there is extra terrestrial life' and 'there isn't extra terrestrial life'. These are both statements of fact and when enough evidence is found one would be a true statement of fact and the other would be a false statement of fact.

*Bullet point 4 and 5 here seem to confirm this*

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1T4GUEA_enGB384GB384&defl=en&q=define:fact&sa=X&ei=LKATTfmiN46ChQeI7624Dg&ved=0CBYQkAE

 

I don't want to turn this into a theist/atheist thread but can you provide evidence that at no point in human history we won't be able to prove or disprove that there is a god? What knowledge do you have that I don't that enables you to make that unambiguous statement?

 

Given that, then your proposition is an opinion not a fact, in my opinion.

 

Except it's not my proposition.....at least not until it becomes a fact.

[spooky3]

This seems like a tasty topic!