Opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one

 

When I flew tours on Hawaii, I conducted an important survey. I asked my passengers to participate, and I told them I needed honest answers. “What type of belly button do you have, an In-ee, or an Out-ee?”, I asked.  Their responses were fun. My accumulated belly button data affirmed a hunch previously formed after countless hours of observation at the beach. There are more in-ees than out-ees. By doing my survey I had, in a primitive way, created an informed opinion.

How do we form opinions? My conclusion, and that of many psychologists, is people do a lot less thinking about how they form opinions than I did determining whether people have in or out buttons on their tummies. And, frighteningly, it seems the less we research our opinions the more fiercely we hold to them. I suggest, if we want to become better thinkers, what is commonly referred to as critical thinkers, we must look seriously at how we form opinions.

For a climate guy this issue is perplexing. Many times, I run into people with iron clad, anti-science, opinions for which they have made no effort to find a reputable source as back up. Weakly formed opinions are often given the status of religious beliefs.

This revelation of how we form opinions has had a profound effect on how I classify my personal viewpoints. It has forced me to reflect on my beliefs, opinions, and what I consider facts.

In response, I created mental opinion folders to help me prioritize and professionalize the process which I use to form opinions and take as much emotion out of the process as possible.

My first opinion folder is called beliefs. Since my Christian religious views are important to me, but difficult to prove, the only subject in my belief folder is Jesus Christ.

My next three opinion folders are labeled weak, moderate, and strong. When someone is expounding on an issue, I put the issue in one of my opinion folders. In conversation I may say, “I have an opinion on this but let’s hear what you have to say.”

This gives me time to evaluate how self-assured I am about an issue and more importantly ask questions revealing how and why my conversation partner has the opinion they do. Often, by listening, I find there are areas we agree on, or mutually held truths.  In a meaningful conversation these truths are important to affirm.  

If I have an opinion I wish to express, the time spent listening gives me a chance to reflect on the validity of my argument and how energetically I want to defend it.

My last folder: While I protect my religious belief, and I attempt to be openminded on my opinions, I have a final folder called facts.

Subjects that make it to the “Facts Folder” always start as an opinion. They start as opinions simply because I cannot possibly know enough about everything to accept them as fact right off. And most subjects stay in one of my opinion folders forever because I do not have the time to investigate a topic to my satisfaction.  As time goes on, depending on their importance or how much reliable information comes along, I might move a weakly held opinion up to a moderately or strongly held opinion.

May I suggest when watching TV or when engaging in conversation you try this system? At the very least you discipline your thought process. It has been humbling to discover how many things I am not particularly well schooled in. It also helps me spot people who claim strong allegiance to a position but have little expertise in it. It helps inoculate myself from being conned.    

Regarding climate, it has been eight non-stop years of study for me. The science is in the fact folder. Even though I slid the climate crisis into my fact folder I am open to a well-reasoned denialist argument in hope the argument may hold up. But even if a denialist argument sounds good, one must ask, “If your denialist argument is valid, why has it have not been accepted for print in a reputable journal or adopted by the experts?”

Science papers denying climate change, summited to science journals for peer review, have slowed to near zero.  The question now is not if the world is rapidly warming but how rapidly we can marshal the will power to slow it.

The issue surrounding climate change joins other settled science in my fact folder such as the earth is more round than flat, the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, the moon is not made of cheddar cheese, but gouda, as was settled by the last jumping cow, and most people have in-ees not out-ees. Progress rolls on.

Note: While I attempt to inject a little humor into a dire problem the United States longest running monthly publication, the “Scientific American”, brought to our attention a petition of 13,802 scientists from 156 nations. The scientist signatories demand the world’s nations address the climate crisis. Their evidence is put forward with easy-to-understand graphs. You can find the graphs in the science journal “BioScience”, Volume 70, issue 1, Jan 2121.

In response to the petition, the Scientific American editors now define our earth status as being in a state of emergency. It is important to add this Earth Day this is a solvable emergency.

BioScience: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/issue/70/1

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