Back to the hole

Facts in and of themselves are just that, facts. Opinions, even informed opinions, are just opinions. They don't tell us what is good, bad or indifferent. They really don't tell us anything (other than what is or how something thinks about something). But, in the end, they're really not all that helpful. Why?

At bottom, what makes a difference is really only that which matters, that which has meaning. But meaning for whom? How do we determine what something means. This is a much more difficult question, believe me. It may even be the most difficult question of all. Why? Because when all is said and done, we find meaning in those things that we believe.

This may sound banal, and to a certain extent it is, but it is nevertheless deep, and not everyone is ready to dive into that deepness. What am I talking about? Let's say, just for the sake of argument, Joan believes in free-market capitalism. How does she interpret the "facts" about starvation in the world? Let's say, for example, that Tom believes in a redistribution of wealth, if necessary, forced. How does he interpret those same facts? Who's "right"?

Yes, here's the rub. What the facts tell us, what they mean, depend, in the end on what we believe, in particular how we believe the world functions, whether money or G-d is at the root of all things, what we believe democracy to be or what we understand when we use the words "freedom" or "liberty" or "government" or "wealth" or any number of other abstract concepts that can't be corralled in fact or statistics or numbers.

No, in the end, it is our beliefs that drive our thinking, our understanding of numbers, our interpretation of reality, our opinions and our knowledge. Everybody can't be right, and everybody can't be wrong. But, the biggest part of our unending discussions don't center around facts, or statistics, or anything, except what we believe ... and we tend to congregate with those who believe the things that we do too.

I only bring this up because while we think we are being oh so convincing in our argumentation, that we are so persuasive in our presentations, in fact we are merely telling others what it is we believe. And the question that immediately presents itself, of course, is why is that what you (or I) believe better than what somebody else believes? Yes, just why should that be?

Over the hole

How do you figure out who's got the best numbers? I know you're not going to like this, but we have to now ask ourselves what do we mean by "best"? Are the best numbers those that most accurately describe the phenomenon in question, or are the best numbers those that we like the most? Good question, I think.

What I've been leading up to over the past few posts is that for as much as we may like numbers and quantitative data and all that objectivity, truth be told, they aren't as objective as we would like. The numbers can't really tell us anything. The numbers are, depending on how we approach them, merely one way of describing whatever it is we are looking at. The numbers aren't just "there", independent of us. There are only numbers there when we choose to count. This is what my conference-attending friends need to remember. And it's what you need to remember, as well, when you read something – including my posts – where numbers and statistics and data are presented.

The question we have to be asking ourselves is: So what?

The Unites States is the richest country in the world (in terms of GDP). About 33% of all workers worldwide are unemployed or poor. The Germans (or Australians) consume the most beer per capita in the world. (It depends on the year ... there seems to be an undocumented competition going on.) Only about 16% of students pursuing a bachelor's degree in the US attending college full-time. The number of young people pursuing a college degree in Germany is about 28% of a given class year, while in the US it is almost 50%.

The response to each and every one of these statements must be the same: So what?

At best, these are facts, even if every one of these facts is a statistic, a number, something objective. But facts are just that: facts. They don't really tell us all that much, do they?

Around the hole

My question is, why is everyone entitled to an opinion? Shouldn't we be saying that everyone is entitled to an informed opinion? How can we tell the difference? I mean, an opinion is an opinion is an opinion, is it not?

One thing we can do is question the opinion-giver as to the reason for that particular opinion. We really should get over our overly sensitive politeness at least enough to determine with the opinion we're being confronted with is informed or uninformed. It makes life easier and is relatively painless (unless the opinion-giver is presented uniformed opinions and feels particularly strong about them ... but we have a word to describe that too: it's called "prejudiced"). And then?

If you've been following the last couple of posts, you may be coming to the slow realization that determining what's worth listening to is a matter of effort, and Lord knows, we moderns aren't all excited about effort. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but living in the modern world just ain't as easy as it looks. Yes, we have to start deciding which back-up evidence is good (or acceptable) or bad; we have to figure out a way to evaluate the evidence and the resulting opinions. (And for those of you who may have lost sight of my train of thought over the last couple of posts, we're now going to come back to the numbers.)

In the absence of any other measure, we tend to think that numbers are somehow "objective". The person with the best quantitative evidence must, of course, have the best opinion. After all figures don't lie, do they? But, as a wise person once noted, all liars figure. No, it's not as easy as we'd like. And there we are, once again ... immediately ... back in that ol' hard-work dilemma. We need to figure out now who's got the best numbers.

Out of the hole

Well, is it? I mean, is it comforting that we can get along without numbers, statistics, quantitative data ... proof? You see, as long as we were talking about anecdotal evidence (that's what my experience is) and the situation is "good" (and we aren't going to debate what that means, at least not at the moment), we tend not to care. It's not an issue. But what if it's a different situation and the notion of "good" is not as obvious?

Let's take government funding ... for anything actually. Is that "good"? Well – and this was my experience at the conference – all of sudden, opinions started going in all kinds of directions. You will notice, please, that we're no longer talking about "experience" (that was something we shared), rather we're talking about "opinions" (something that, at best, groups of people share). But, since were back out of the rabbit hole, how about we ask ourselves just what an "opinion" is. It's really not something we think about everyday, even though they tend to play a truly significant part in our lives.

IMNSHO, there are two fundamental types of opinions. The first is "the result of giving thought to a particular topic or issue". We think about things. We look around. We examine evidence. We look at various perspectives (notice I didn't say "the other side" of an issue ... there is invariably more than just two sides to any issue). We come to a conclusion. That is, we have an opinion. Some folks like to call these "informed opinions". They are, in a word, the result of thought. The second type we can characterize as "a replacement for thought". We just think things are a particular way and say so. There's really no thinking involved. We don't bother looking around. There's no examination of the facts or evidence. We know the answer before we start. That is, we have an opinion. Sound familiar?

"Everybody's entitled to their opinion." Have you ever said that? Have you ever meant it? Is that something you agree with? If you don't, you take the risk of being run out of town on a rail, don't you? But, it's quite clear, without even delving into the subject very deep at all, that not all opinions are created equal. So now what?

In the hole

You need to bear with me for a moment. We're going to jump back out of the rabbit hole ... or dive in deeper, I'm not quite I remember which way we're supposed to be going. Well, let's face it. I'm anything but alone in this regard. You don't have to look very far to figure that out.

I was recently at a conference attended by a large number of some of the most well-intended people I had met in a long time. Educators, for the most part, but others who were smack in the middle of real life and economic and policy issues ... people who were doing their damnedest to solve some serious problems. What struck me, however, is how enthralled they were by numbers. Now, don't get me wrong, I think statistics most certainly have their place, and that quantitative studies and investigations can be revealing (if understood properly). But do the numbers show us the truth, or what's right or which way to go next? In other words, can something be right without there being numbers to back it up?

I think so, but I also saw that I was in a very small minority in that group. My experience is that people who are curious, inquisitive, and interested appear to learn more faster than people who are less so. I have found that people who tend to like to read are more often curious, inquisitive and interested folks. That's just my experience, but it is an experience that has repeated itself repeatedly on two different continents in a dozen different cultures.

No, I don't have numbers and statistical correlations to back it up, but is this one of the places I need to? I don't think so, because, in the end, I think we all generally agree that knowing there are curious, inquisitive and interested people is a good thing, that having such people around is a good thing. So, it would seem that as long as it's good, we don't need all that quantitative backup. That's comforting, isn't it?