Facts vs. Opinions: The Spectrum of Validity

Epistemology can be a very tricky subject. Like other difficult-to-grasp concepts, or you might say "like training wheels", we teach our children a dumbed-down version that they will (hopefully) one day replace or refine with a more complex, more accurate understanding as their cognitive abilities mature.

Most adults grasp the notion of what a fact is (even if they are republicans and pretend not to). In the technical jargon, a positive statement is an assertion that can be proven objectively either true or false. If it is true, it's a "fact," and if it is false, it's "incorrect" (or possibly even a "lie" in the case that the person making the false assertion intends to deceive or is a republican).

Opinions are more tricky. Opinions are not positive statements -- they are normative statements, that is, they reflect "norms." Opinions are not objectively verifiable; rather, they are subjective. Unlike positive statements, which are either valid (that is, true) or invalid (that is, false), normative statements exist along a SPECTRUM OF VALIDITY, which is to say, some of them are more valid than others.

The Spectrum of Validity

This is where people tend to get hung up. "But isn't everyone's opinion just as valid as anyone else's?" they ask.

"No," I will answer. "That is obviously stupid."

"But if you cannot prove objectively whether an opinion is true or false, who is to say whether it is 'valid'?" they retort.

"Ah, I'm glad you asked," says I. Here's the thing: unlike facts, the validity of opinions is based on (a) the evidence backing them up and (b) the expertise of the person holding them.

Ergo, to use a hypothetical, the opinion of a child that "Frozen is a great movie!" is not as valid as that of a professional film critic who asserts otherwise. The hypothetical child has almost no expertise -- she has only seen four or five films in her life. The hypothetical professional film critic, on the other hand, holds an MFA in Film Studies from a reputable university and has seen thousands of films. In layman's terms, the film critic "knows what she is talking about"; the child does not. When pressed for evidence to back up her opinion, the child cannot offer anything more than one or two sentences about liking this or that character, or liking this or that moment. The film critic, on the other hand, must provide five or six paragraphs of evidence to back up her opinion (and must get them to her editor by 11:00 or she'll be fired).

After hearing it explained in this way, most people understand. "But," they will ask, "what about the case of two film critics who disagree?" Indeed! This is perhaps the trickiest aspect of the Spectrum of Validity. Since the validity of opinions is derived from the weight of the experience and expertise behind them, two opinions can be in dispute while still having equal validity!

Another way of phrasing this concept is that facts are mutually exclusive, whereas opinions are not. Two opinions may disagree with one another and yet both be just as "right." This allows for a never-ending dialogue between equally valid (if mutually dissenting) opinions, for a recognition and discussion of the differing norms / values / criteria that form the basis of those opinions, and also for a never-ending "arms race" in the pursuit of evidence and expertise to lend increased validity to those opinions.

What this DOES NOT mean is that everyone gets to chime in with their own opinion and that it will be accepted and respected regardless of how stupid or invalid it may be. While everyone is certainly entitled to his opinion, not every opinion is equally valid. Likewise, if your opinion cannot be justified or defended, you may not actually be expressing an opinion so much as just passing gas.

Fantasy Football Roster!

For the first time ever this year, I managed to draft all the players I wanted! Here's my starting roster:

POSITION	PLAYER NAME
QB	Tad Richwater III
RB	Velocious "Quickie" Fastman
RB	Ronquan Joans
WR	Devante Williams
WR	Di'Von'té Jackson
WR	Duhvawntae Smith
TE	Jezerekiah Bibleson
K	Adolphus Czjkermnkowski
DEF	Mustangs

How did your draft go? Feel free to post your own team in the comments!

Guster Set List - Paramount Theater, Denver, CO 2016-02-06

• Diane
• This Could All Be Yours
• Two Points For Honesty
• Doin’ It By Myself
• Bad Bad World
• Never Coming Down
• Barrel Of A Gun
• Dear Valentine
• That's No Way To Get To Heaven
• Red Oyster Cult
• Lightning Rod
• Gangway
• Come Downstairs And Say Hello (F. ukulele intro)
• Do You Love Me
• Ramona
• Ryan asks for volunteers who are self-reported “9 out of 10 high”, brings them up on stage to play the bongos for next song
• Two High Guys (improvised)
• One Man Wrecking Machine
• Simple Machine
• Airport Song
• What You Call Love
• Ryan explains encore plan, i.e. exit stage left, walk around the back, re-enter stage right
• Fa Fa

(encore break) Ryan: “Thank you Denver! We’ll be back in 13 seconds!”

• Long Night
• Satellite (F. Kishi Bashi on violin)
• Come On Eileen (F. Kishi Bashi on violin)

(2nd encore break)

• Happier

Venom on Car2Go

Perhaps you have seen Car2Gos around Denver (or wherever you may live) and wondered if maybe you should become a member. The answer is an emphatic NO -- unless you have a pile money to burn, in which case this miserable, greedy, stingy company will be glad to take it from you.

I was actually pretty happy with Car2Go when I first signed up two years ago. The service has gotten steadily worse since then. Prices kept going up. Additional fees kept appearing.

The final straw was that in August they drastically reduced the area where the cars are available, which means my home in South Denver is no longer anywhere near anywhere you can use a Car2Go.

Of course, Car2Go stubbornly refuses to issue me a refund, reserving its right to “increase or decrease the size of, amend, suspend, or terminate its operating areas in North America.”

Don’t make the same mistake I did! Use Uber or Lyft or public transportation instead -- it's cheaper, and as an added bonus, you won’t have to drive the car yourself.

Fellowship of the Ring Rankings

I was recently asked to rank the members of the Fellowship, so here goes:

1. Frodo — crybaby; ultimately fails to destroy the Ring, which was his whole job
2. Boromir — responsible for breaking the Fellowship
3. Sam — suspiciously over-devoted to Frodo
4. Merry — keeps it real
5. Aragorn — pretty badass, for a human
6. Gimli — badass
7. Gandalf — is a motherfrackin' sorcerer
8. Pippin — cheeky, plucky, can sing... everything a hobbit should be
9. Legolas — sees really far; badass with ranged weapons; badass with melee weapons; all-around ultimate badass

Roommate Sketch

SLAD

Hi. I'm your roommate, Slad.

YOU

Your shirt says "Slab."

SLAD

That's a typo... Anyway, I get top bunk, the left side of the fridge is mine, don't touch my stuff, and word of the wives -- better not touch my stuff. I'm going out for a jog. When I get back, you better not be here.

YOU

But I live here--

SLAD

Oh, and don't put anything up on the walls. I'm gonna get us a bunch of Ozzie swag for this place.

YOU

Cool, I like Ozzie.

SLAD

Yeah? You a big White Sox fan?

YOU

No... Ozzie Guillen?

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Written by Yours Truly and Danny Jelinek, sometime in 2008 or 2009.

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"DO NOT Shoot For The Moon!"

The internets don’t seem to know who first said the following oft-repeated platitude, so please forgive the lack of attribution:

Shoot for the moon — if you miss, you’ll still land among the stars.

We’ll come back to that in a sec.

Broadly speaking, the idea behind such traditional metaphorical adages is that there is some kind of literal truth to the statement meant to extend out to the implied figurative truth of whatever message it attempts to convey. I suppose this is because the human mind seeks to cope with the chaotic/nonsensical/absurd universe in which it finds itself by constructing patterns or models that may be applied to distinct but apparently similar phenomena. We refer to these phenomenological patterns or models as “understanding” or “insight” or “wisdom.”

Take this old saying, for instance:

A stitch in time saves nine.

Sure, it’s a dated metaphor. I mean, hardly anyone spends much time on stitching nowadays. But generally speaking, as far as I know, it’s literally true — the sooner one stitches up a hole in one’s clothes, the less that hole will tend to expand over time, and therefore less overall stitchwork will be required. Similarly, this figurative concept also applies to problems that become more difficult to solve as time passes. Of course, sometimes you can just ignore a problem until it goes away, or resolves itself, or whatever, so “a stitch in time” isn’t necessarily always true, but nevertheless the wisdom of the advice resonates in plenty of cases.

Okay, now take this one:

A watched pot never boils.

Here we have a less-than-perfect adage where the figurative meaning is generally accepted as true in spite of everyone knowing for a fact that the statement is literally false. Watched pots definitely do boil — your gaze does not hold some kind of magical power over the fundamental laws of physics.* But we as a society keep this adage around because the idea behind it (i.e., that it’s hard to get anything accomplished when somebody is either literally or figuratively looking over your shoulder and/or breathing down your neck) has some truth in it and can be useful advice.

The moon-shootin’-est game around!

Now, the problem with the “shoot for the moon...” adage is that it is neither literally nor figuratively true. In fact, it is complete bullsh!t. It is one of those things that people say merely because it sounds nice, and positive, and encouraging, and makes them feel good, and (as long as they don’t apply much critical thinking to it) seems like something they would want to believe.

Without getting into a nerdy discussion of why “shoot for the moon...” is obviously literal garbage, I challenge you to talk to some people who have figuratively “shot for the moon” but missed. I bet a lot of them (if they are being honest) will tell you that they regret it and wish they had instead set more realistic, achievable goals for themselves.

Of course, when it comes to adages, there’s usually some contradictory (if not mutually exclusive) piece of conventional wisdom floating around. So maybe “shoot for the moon...” could be countered, or at least tempered, by something like:

If you fly too close to the sun, you’ll only end up melting your fake wings and dying in the middle of the sea.

But why bother with such a counter-adage (even one that does draw on similar astronomical material for its metaphor, as well as “ups the ante” by embedding an allusion to one of humanity’s most cherished ancient myths) when we can revise “shoot for the moon...” to be more accurate both literally and figuratively, thus:

Shoot for the moon — but be aware that if you miss, you will end up hurtling off into the infinite blackness of space, eventually losing radio contact with Earth, and slowly dying of asphyxiation after suffering through maddening hours or even days of unimaginable terror, loneliness, and despair.

Or, more succinctly:

DO NOT shoot for the moon.

You’re welcome, humanity!

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*Granted, quantum theory tells us that actually it does.