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| I believe in the principle of Due Process  |
Townhall.com Tom Purcell The Pew Research Center quiz was harder than I expected. Ah, yes, you speak of the recently released survey in which Pew quizzed 5,035 adult Americans to determine their ability to distinguish between factual information and opinion statements in the news. That's right. The Pew website lets anyone take a quiz featuring 10 statements, five that are true-or-false factual statements and five that are opinion statements. Pew told me to ignore whether or not a statement is accurate and also to ignore whether or not I agree with it. I follow the news and figured I'd ace the quiz, but I didn't. Let's take a look at the quiz. Pew's first statement says, 'Abortion should be legal in most cases.' Did you classify that as a fact or an opinion? I classified it as an opinion and got it right. This is a contentious issue, but the statement is still an opinion. Pew's second statement said, 'Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally have some rights under the Constitution.' How did you classify that one?" It's factual. Look, it's true that undocumented immigrants don't have the full rights of a U.S. citizen, but, according to the ACLU, our Constitution does afford them some rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, privacy and others. I struggled with Pew's next statement, however. That 'Democracy is the greatest form of government'? Yes. I classified it as a fact, because I strongly believe that democracy - in our case a representative republic - is the greatest, but the statement is, in truth, an opinion. It's not always easy to separate one's strong beliefs and opinions from facts. Pew found that each participant was more likely to classify both factual and opinion statements as factual when the statements validated his or her personal politics or beliefs. That's probably why Pew chose 10 statements that may get people fired up, depending on their political points of view. Such as this one that's still driving conspiracy nuts crazy: 'President Barack Obama was born in the United States.' I correctly classified that as a fact. Which others did you get right? It's a fact that 'Health care costs per person in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world,' that 'Spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid make up the largest portion of the U.S. federal budget,' and that 'ISIS lost a significant portion of its territory in Iraq and Syria in 2017. Which opinions did you classify correctly? It's an opinion, not a fact, that 'Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are a very big problem for the country today,' and that 'A $15 federal minimum wage is essential to the health of the U.S. Economy. That leaves us with one more statement: 'Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient. Even though I know that statement is an opinion, I couldn't resist classifying it as a fact! You did better than most. Pew reports that only 26 percent of the adults surveyed correctly identified all five factual statements as factual, and just 35 percent identified all five opinion statements as opinion. That's worrisome. To be sure. Our republic depends on a well-informed populace to remain strong. If the majority of our people can't differentiate between fact and opinion - or fact and fiction, for that matter - they can be easily misled. That doesn't bode well for our future. Link Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | ||
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| Freethinker |
Was not hard for me. Perhaps that indicates I’m not sufficiently “passionate” about what I know and believe. Hmm ... opinion or fact? ► 6.4/93.6 ___________ “We are Americans …. Together we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants.” — George H. W. Bush | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
Same here. The Obama birth cert. one gave me pause, because my personal opinion is it's not settled fact, but I realize it's widely regarded as such. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Staring back from the abyss  |
Maybe I'm just slow tonight, but...where's the quiz? Never mind. Found it. Scored 10/10 but I lied about the Hadji one. Not a chance in hell he was born here. ________________________________________________________ "Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton. | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
The instructions expressly said to ignore whether you agreed with the fact or opinion, accurate, etc. where he was born is a fact, wherever it might have been. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
Which is precisely what I did.
That made no sense at all. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
Sure it does. He was born somewhere, right. The statement “he was born in Kenya” is a statement of fact, which may be either correct or incorrect. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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Casuistic Thinker and Daoist |
It doesn't have to be settled to qualify as a fact. You're confusing Fact by shading it with Correct or Incorrect. The object of the quiz was to separate Fact from Opinion No, Daoism isn't a religion | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
One assumes you were a much better lawyer than you are a wordsmith  .The statement "He was born in Kenya" is no more a fact, for it merely having been stated, than is the statement "He was born on Mars." They are both merely statements. More specifically: Assertions, which are a type of statement.
In fact (real fact, not my own definition of "fact") it does: fact n. something that actually exists; reality; truth: n. something known to exist or to have happened: n. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: All of those contain a common thread, which is the knowledge of something being true. "Obama was born in America" has become accepted as fact by the majority of the world's population. Even by many who initially questioned that assertion. (Partially as a result of what some believe to be potentially dodgy documentation.) As such, I will also accept it as fact, however I continue to harbour a degree of doubt as to the veracity of the claim. You both are conflating "fact" with "assertion." All of the items in the Pew research quiz are assertions. Some are assertions of fact. Some are assertions of opinion. Let us take one of the Pew assertions as an example. "Health care costs per person in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world" is indeed factual, because it is provably true. "Health care costs per person in the U.S. are too high," however, is opinion. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
Hence, my use of the wording “The statement “he was born in Kenya” is a statement of fact...” rather than “..... is a fact...” Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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