You seem to be conflating facts and opinions. You correctly point out that people disagree on facts, but you don't seem to accept that even when people do agree on facts they can still disagree on opinion. I find this position dangerous, as it rapidly leads to the idea that, if everyone were equally in agreement of the facts, clearly they would all come to the same conclusions based on those facts. You have to draw a line between opinion and facts somewhere: choose a place, draw the line, and then assert your opponent is calling a fact an opinion; but as soon as you start redefining words like "opinion" to be something people don't get to choose the correctness of... well, it isn't just my "opinion" that you are now becoming part of the problem, I would argue it is a "fact" (insofar as words have definitions, which I would often argue against in the small, but definitely can't challenge in the large).

No, that is not what I'm claiming. I'm arguing for a normative claim: when people agree on the facts, they should not disagree on opinion. It is obvious that as a matter of fact, they can disagree / but this 'can' is that of a matter of fact possibility, not one of 'absolute allowance'. People can come to believe their opinions are correct, but that doesn't make them so. We can, as a matter of fact, live with the fact that our opinions are not absolutely allowed, but I don't think that makes our holding those opinions right in a strict sense.

> No, that is not what I'm claiming. I'm arguing for a normative claim: when people agree on the facts, they should not disagree on opinion.

I'm confused, isn't that exactly what the parent's argument is though? You said that's not what you're saying, and then repeat the exact same thing, contradicting yourself.

Personally I disagree with you, if I'm understanding correctly. To me, a huge chunk of the population, you included it would seem, believes that some things are no longer a matter of opinion, that 10 and 20 years ago everyone would have happily agreed are matters of opinion rather than matters of fact.

I hope to clear this up.

If I understood him correctly, he's saying that I was claiming that if we agreed on facts (if facts were settled, as it were), we would agree in opinions, which is clearly false as a matter of fact. My claim is that we should agree in opinions, if facts were settled. I think difference between would/should is significant here. I am saying: if facts were settled, and we had a disagreement, at least one of the parties in the disagreement should not hold their opinions (would be wrong). I am not saying: if facts were settled, we could not be in disagreement.

If it was possible in principle to settle the facts, our apparent entitlement to hold certain opinions would be, in a sense, illusory. We can act on the assumption that it is not, for sure, but that doesn't make our entitlement right.

I am not even claiming that facts are settled (that is, that we know what is true as a matter of fact). Since they are not settled, we should be more cautious in our taking of opinions, and of course that goes both ways.

It's a largely philosophical question so not surprising that it's difficult to go about.

At least for me, I am coming from the angle that some things are a matter of fact, and some are a matter of opinion. For example, everyone can be fully informed on economics, but on the matter of "how much should a waiter be paid in New York City", there is no "right" answer.

That might very well be not what the disagreement was about from your perspective though. :/

Yes, I understand that. The issue is that not all disagreements are about what you call "matters of opinion" (and thus faultless [1]). (And even when they are, one can give an approximate answer that filters out a bunch of alternative opinions on the matter: for example, it seems like a waiter in NYC should not be paid less than a certain a amount, let's say, the average it takes for someone in NYC in the person's social strata to pay rent and be able to eat and go to work each day). The issue really comes up when one takes all disagreements to take this form, which is, I think, what this thread was initially about (then the GGP asked why we should care about the facts at all).

[1]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4545405

Ah, I wasn't aware there was some formal theories on this idea!

Along the same lines (maybe), I've always thought an improved way to approach disagreement (breaking down "matters of opinion) is to break things down into components to better discover discrete points of contention. When you have a unsolvable dispute, you've either reached a matter of opinion, or, the disputed topic has to be broken down further. I wonder if that's the approach the book takes?

I think this approach could be quite successful, assuming two reasonable people involved (a tall order nowadays perhaps).

There are "facts" which support diametrical points of view, and you brought up the perfect example. You can make data support any theory you want, and you'll get published! And stories will be written about your research! And you'll get a raise! No matter WHAT you say about it.

People look to their ideological pedagogues to TELL them what to think about the NEWS COVERAGE of the ARTICLES about the PAPERS about the DATA, regardless of what it says, and it's happening on BOTH sides, with both the Rush Limbaugh's and the Jon Stewart's of the world. Facts may matter to you and me, but they certainly don't to most of the population. By the time it reaches the average person, an 18-month study, with all it's glorious data, assumptions, conditions, and results, is washed out in a single sound byte, because no one has the patience to understa...

Oh, look! A funny cat video! That's hilarious. Let me just send that on to 1,000 of my followers...