Grand Rapids Business Daily

What is your opinion on the validity of opinions?

Do you think every opinion is equally valid? Why or why not? If you don't think all opinions are equally valid, what makes one opinion more valid than another?

Public Comments

1. Yes. no opinion by itself is worth anything more or anything less than any other opinion. There is only One reason why a person would make an exception to this.
2. Well, the old saying that opinions are like a--h---s, everybody's got one and no one is particularly interested in anybody else's, still stands. An opinion is a bit like a reflection in a mirror. I don't see how "validity" can even apply to it. But the power of persuasion and the laziness of some to conjure up their own opinions never ceases to amaze me.
3. Many opinions have little validity. If you have studied a subject for a long time, put in hours and hours of research, maybe you have formed a valid opinion about the subject. Another person hears about the subject briefly on the nightly news and has based his opinion on the biased newscast. He really has no facts on which to base a conclusion, but he now has an opinion.
4. I think you would consider all opinions equally valid only in the case you do not know anything about the people giving them. If you know something about these people, the validity you give to their opinions become immediately biased. Ms A could have more experience than Mr B; Mr C could be known for saying nonsense many times, etc. All matters, we accept it or not: Age, educational level, cultural background, career, economic level, attitude, way of talking, clothes, etc. Let me put the question in other contexts to show my point. - What would you trust, Mr X's blog or a widely known newspaper? - Do you ask sometimes a question on certain topic to a specific friend? Why not someone else? - A top contributor in Yahoo Answers must have a percentage of best answers. Why? One more. - Considering you do not know almost anything about me, if Bill Gates says something about the future of Windows, and I tell you I totally disagree with him, will you take his opinion and mine equally valid? Whose opinion will you trust? We can do our best to give everyone the same level of attention when listening each opinion, but that might be all we can do about it. We will put a weight on what we listen based on what we know about the people.
5. every opinion will have different levels of validity. What makes one opinion more valid than the other is if the person stating actually knows and understands the topic fully. Sadly nowadays there's too much liberalism, everyone can say whatever the hell they want because its their 'rights'. People should only share their opinions when they have a thorough knowledge of the topic, don't you think?