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Politics : The Left Wing Porch

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To: cosmicforce who wrote (4065)	2/14/2001 11:22:30 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) of 6089

But you fail to get my essential point. You talked about an argument "based on data." But all data are opinions. There are no facts. What we call facts are merely more broadly agreed opinions. When you believe you observe something, all you really have is an opinion that you observed it. When you believe you feel something, all you really have is the opinion that you feel something. When the first person to see a planet said "I think there's something different about that star" it was obviously an opinion. Now so many people have thought they saw the same thing, and so many people have looked in instruments and thought they observed the same patterns, that we accept that the opinions are strong enough and universal enough to call the opinions facts. But they still are only opinions. Definitions are certain because they definitions. It may be an opinion whether this chemical has the chemical composition NaCl. But if it DOES, it's salt. Because salt is defined as that chemical with the composition NaCl. Not an opinion, an agreement, because we agreed to define it that way. So it's not disingenuous to say that all we have are opinions and definitions. It's simply a fact! <g>

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