Poll: Can opinions be wrong?

[Crispee]

From a certain point of view, all opinions are wrong, from another, all opinions are right.

Opinions are just personal taste, so you can't say an opinion is wrong, because someone else disagrees with you.

And I think that it doesn't count as an opinion if it can be proven wrong by facts.

 

[Freeze_L]

Opinions can definitely be wrong. just because it is what you believe does not make it right or true. for example if someone said "I like to kill babies by boiling them in oil and then eating them, because they are soulless parasites, but that is just my opinion." this would be definitive wrong, objectively WRONG!

However there are opinions that can never be wrong, for instance i think yatzhee is funny and a good reviewer; my friend however thinks he is a massive prick,a bad reviewer, and does not know how to make a good knock-knock joke much less a funny show. Is his opinion wrong? No. Is my opinion wrong? No. Is killing infants and eating their flesh wrong? YES!

 

[ironballs16]

Opinions are usually based on facts, and if the facts are wrong, the opinion is.

It all depends how subjective the subject is. If someone says "I don't like ACDC because the loud rock sound doesn't really appeal to me", you can't question that. However, if you say "I hate ACDC because everyone that listens to them is a moron", you can question that, even if they say it's just their opinion. It's a generalization, and it's insulting.

This. If the opinion is based on faulty information, it will be an inherently flawed opinion.

 

[Callate]

Opinions on subjective things can't be wrong, because by their nature they only apply to the holder of the opinion, not the subject of the opinion itself. If I say "'x' is the greatest band of all time", what I'm really saying is that 'x' is the band whose music I find most enjoyable. Which is based on my tastes and experiences; the music I grew up with, the other music I've been exposed to, being dropped repeatedly as an infant, and so on. If I have a doctorate in music theory from a prestigous university, my opinion may have more weight with others, and I may have more convincing language at my disposal to convince others of the sound reasoning behind it, not to mention having a doctorate in my back pocket with which to smite the plebians for the stupidity of their divergent views. But the fact that band 'x' is made up of a kazoo, a bagpipe, and a theremin played by chimpanzees doesn't really change that I enjoy their music.

Now if I were to say, for example, that Barack Obama is both an atheist and a Muslim, I'm wrong by definition on objective, factual matters. And I'm an idiot. And no one should listen to me. And I should probably be hitting up Fox News for my own show.

 

[Jamash]

I don't believe an opinion can be wrong,only facts,and while some facts are wrong to a select group of individuals,for example person A says thing x is better than thing y to him it is fact but to everyone else it is opinion which he is entitled to,when do the lines truly become evident?...It's things like this that I enjoy discussing.

OK, but if we take my example of Australia invading China, causing me to hate Australia (I don't, by the way) then surely you'd agree that that opinion is wrong?

Afterall, I'm basing it solely on an incorrect "fact".

The Australian military did take part in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900-1901.

Now to call it a full scale invasion would be overstating the fact (immensely), but it's undeniable that some Australian soldiers did travel to China for military purposes.

Your hatred of Australia could be 'justified', as it can be argued they had no right to be in China, however your hatred would be misplaced if it was only directed at Australia, as there were a whole group of other countries who played a more active role in the Boxer Rebellion.

Your opinion wouldn't be wrong, just grossly exaggerated and misplaced, and by virtue of the fact that you're using your opinion as justification for prejudice and bigotry, your opinion is dubious to say the least, and "tainted" by something that isn't right.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

Even If It's wrong It's still an opinion, In your mind the evil Austrailian attack force invaded the poor Chinese and their pitiful defenses. Now this may be because you heard something wrong on the news as a child, or misunderstood some facts. But even though it has no bearing on real world events, It's still your aopinion based on what you know. And that's an opinion by definition, a decision on something you make based on the situation.

A good point, but if that opinion is so directly linked to that one event that I believed to have happened but never did, then would you agree my opinion is invalid (as opposed to wrong)?

That seems to have come up with quite a few people, and I think "wrong" was the wrong word to use.

Well wrong is the word often associated with opinions. Yes It is technically wrong, the event never happened in any form so your opinion holds no meaning. So in that way it is wrong, but opinions cannot be wrong personally. What we believe is based on how we see things. So even though its wrong on that technical stand point, its right In your mind. I guess they're just tricky like that, though the original example was a good one, and put a lot more backup on the opinions can be wrong idea.

 

[LordWalter]

The idea that there is no legitimate opinion/truth is postmodernism. Postmodernism is fail. Behold:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGOrBCkQ6WY

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/824

 

[nick n stuff]

yes... otherwise it would be fact

 

[Grand_Arcana]

"Evolution is only a theory"

A scientific theory is not the same as a conventional, everyday hunch (we call that a hypothesis) in that they are, for all intents and purposes, scientific fact.

 

[johnman]

Example "In my opinion Obama is a communist nazi on the road to destroy America"
Its wrong but held by many people

 

[ciancon]

No of course not!...but that's just my opinion.

 

[feather240]

Only if it's stupid enough to disrupt logic and cause a lapse in the rules of the universe that makes it wrong, and you know what? It'll happen one of these days.

 

[R4ptur3]

Of course it can be wrong.

If someone said 'in my opinion chocolate can be made of paper' he would be wrong (would be interesting though). Stupid yes, but wrong as well.

However i guess this is my opinion...Damn it! Could be wrong though. Cycle of opinions.

 

[veloper]

Opinions can not only be based on false assumptions, but even highly subjective opinions can be less than opinions with better motivation.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

There are people that carry the opinion that creationism is an equal area of study to science, and that Sarah Palin is a strong woman that'll never give up.

So I'm going to say yes.

 

[Marmooset]

Armond White.
There's your answer in a name.