stuff tagged with "opinions"

If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial. No one can stop you saying that vaccines cause autism, no matter how many times that claim has been disproven.

But if ‘entitled to an opinion’ means ‘entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth’ then it’s pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred.

Doing the work required to hold an opinion means you can argue against yourself better than others can. Only then can you say, “I can hold this view because I can’t find anyone else who can argue better against my view.”