from the article...


The problem with "I'm entitled to my opinion" is that, all too often, it's used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for "I can say or think whatever I like" - and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful.

And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.

First, what's an opinion?

Plato distinguished between opinion or common belief (doxa) and certain knowledge, and that's still a workable distinction today: unlike "1+1=2" or "there are no square circles," an opinion has a degree of subjectivity and uncertainty to it. But "opinion" ranges from tastes or preferences, through views about questions that concern most people such as prudence or politics, to views grounded in technical expertise, such as legal or scientific opinions.