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Opinions Are Not Facts
Everyone has opinions. Whether they are true or not is another matter entirely.
Everyone has opinions. They are formed based on information we acquire, life experience, stories people tell us, our individual perception of the world, and various other environmental and external factors.
Opinions are all well and good, but when they are disproven by fact, holding onto them can be the basis for division, strife, and circular arguments that do nobody any good at all.
Many opinions are harmless. They have little impact on the world at large and do nothing to hurt or otherwise disempower anyone.
However, some opinions can be extremely damaging. Take climate change, for example. You might disagree that this is a problem, but I am going to tell you now that science is not on your side here. Man-made climate change is happening, and denying this based on opinion is going to harm us a lot.
Same thing applies to anti-vaxxers. Science proves that vaccinations are important to public health. The concerns about vaccines and autism were debunked, and frankly, compared to the diseases vaccines prevent, autism in any form is not nearly as terrible.
Yet here we are, long out of the dark ages, and people are taking opinion as fact, and ignoring fact for opinion. Yes, I recognize that this is MY…
