I love this video! Your examples about belief, dogma, horses, and more are so true. I always question everything in my life, and that's led to the end of many relationships. Most of my issues stem from blindly following a specific culture.
It's an interesting point that our beliefs can be changed, but not as easily as opinions. This was an important distinction, you can challenge people's opinions but challenging their beliefs can lead to conflict.
You're so right. Beliefs are often very sacred to us and so have greater connection to how we see ourselves. Challenge a belief and you challenge the person's sense of identity.
This video is insightful, and sticks just to the facts. No pun intended haha! All jokes aside, it truly is a clear depiction of the differences between facts, opinions, and beliefs and sets them even more straight with examples to back up the explanation. Being able to seperate each of these components and identify them correctly is an important skill, especially with the unknown components of the world we live in today. Thank you for sharing.
This is great example of what is fact and what is belief. Using amoral facts to show someone why you believe in what you do to help them understand your own belief. Also you can recognize why someone believes the way that they do through their own value statements while remaining neutral.
Loved the point that opinions are subjective! It's important to remember that everyone has different experiences and we should listen to and try to understand why people think the way they do.
you are so amazing.. everything became crystal clear to me once you started explaining and yeah...your examples are so so relatable. thank you for putting your efforts into making this video.. really really helpful content.
I really enjoyed the video, it can help clarify fact, opinion and beliefs. I do think facts or truth can and do enter into our beliefs. Thanks for the information.
They all intersect, which is why sometimes they're hard to tell apart. Still, while some beliefs do include facts as you point out they done have to include them.
I teach high school photography and I've been trying to use this logic to explain to my students that based on facts DSLR cameras take better photos than iPhones. Based on the camera components you'll get better quality photos from an DSLR over an iPhone. But students argue with me all day that their iPhones are better. I have tried explaining to them that opinion about their photos doesn't change the facts about the equipment being used. Thanks for the clear examples in this video.
A phenomenal example. I wonder if it also has something to do with what your students are used to seeing. For example, movies are shot at 24 fps and have been for decades. As a result, this is what we are used to seeing. When we watch something at 30 fps or even 48 fps (Hobbit) it looks wrong to us, even though it's technically more true to how we actually sew. You students may be used to seeing iPhone pics and so have this in their minds as the highest quality.
This needs to be shared and facebook and other social websites. More people need to know the difference between facts and beliefs. Just cause you believe you are right doesn't mean that is true!
Oh, I love how you promoted your channel by the end of the video haha thank you for this! I'm really struggling what to answer with the 'true or false' questions: • Opinions cannot be truth. • Truth can differ depending on a person's belief. So is the first statement false and the second statement true? (I'm so confused I'm sorry ;w;)
Opinions are not truth but rather a personal value statement of that truth. I love mornings; others hate them. These are opinions, not objective truths. The fact that morning exists is a truth.
First of all, the whale eating part got me dying!! This humor is just perfect lol! I was able to stay on track with these explanations. I won't lie, I've confused facts, opinions, and beliefs myself. This was a better way of organizing it all. Thank you.
It was really helpful. But I have a question. there is belief in facts that you may not have seen but can verify, like the existence of New York or the Eiffel Tower. Do we need to have belief in facts at all?
I'm really glad to hear that. Storytelling helps me better understand concepts, but sometimes I feel like stories (my own included) go on for too long and lose their impact.
Opinions, beliefs, and faith are not a pathway to knowledge or truth. Right and wrong is subjective. Good and evil is subjective. A person can love to hate something.
What’s really sad about this is a lot of people have a hard time distinguishing the difference between fact and opinion, but for me, this is pretty basic stuff like I always say common knowledge isn’t common to everyone sad but true
1. A fact can be true or false 2. Your fact of our teeth proving we evolved is an opinion and a belief. My opinion and belief is that we were designed to choose to eat either. 3. Beliefs are just opinions with faith
For me, I would classify these a values--guiding principles by which I live and direct my life. But that doesn't mean these things can't overlap. Someone may have a value that says they should always do what, say, Jesus would do, but that value is rooted in a belief that they know what Jesus would in fact do.
I always understood it as: Fact states reality, Opinion interprets/perceives reality, and Belief accepts things as reality. But this was interesting. I especially loved the horse example haha, really made me think. So just curious, how would you distinguish fact from truth then? What’s the difference?🧐
I REALLY like that three-part definition! I'm going to hand on to that! Regarding fact and truth, the way I heard a researcher put it is truth is what we seek through science, and facts are as close as we've come thus far to expressing that truth. For example, lately we're coming to a new understanding Newtonian gravity through time-space theory. So our facts will evolve as we better understand how to express truth.
@@mug9591 I would say yes, truth is reality, but as our sense and methods prevent us from perfectly perceiving reality (thus far), we express it in terms of facts and theories.
Gotcha👌 Though I’d say science for example doesn’t prevent us from understanding reality, it actually encourages us to do so, even if not perfectly. Science is by definition a chorus of ever-expanding research for our limited understanding of reality.
"We do not necessarily need our subjective opinions to align perfectly with objective facts." You forget, this is the Internet, where you can only be objective if you agree with what I think, otherwise it's just your opinion no matter what it is you actually said. We completely destroyed the meaning of the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity like ten years ago XD
I agree that everyone deserves the respect due them as a member of the human family, I don't feel that means I need to respect an opinion that I feel is harmful to others or is degrading.
Agreed. I'm sorry, but not all options deserve my respect. Be degrading to others and hide behind "it's my opinion" and I won't defend or respect that position.
Hi. Your very first case study just on 2 minutes in is incorrect. You mention evolution of human teeth as a fact, EVOLUTUON IS AN OPINION. But the just of the video is ok. 😊
To the extent we have been able to observe and measure and predict evolution, it's largely accepted as fact. But how we interpret and perceived these facts, that's where our opinions take the reigns. Both are important as we pursue truth.
As an Alaskan Native Iñupiaq who grew up eating whale, I got kinda triggered when you spoke like that about eating whale lol. I understand it was just for the context of the video and beliefs though.
That is a super excellent point!! Whale is a noble and traditional source of meat for our native brothers and sisters up north, so yes, a great example of how beliefs can be very one-sided. Thank you for pointing this out!
I agree. Facts are understandable true statements like 2+2=4. Lies are blantantly false statements like Nikola Jokic has no championships when the Nuggets won the chip last year. Opinions are subjective and cant be legitimately right or wrong like chicken is better than fries because everyone has their own preferences.
@@henrycash8927 Right. Remember, an opinion is who we view something--like is something is good, bad, cool, awesome, lame, etc. A belief is a moral North start, a way to live our lives. Using your example, think of numerology, where people live thier lives by the interpretation of numbers.
Beliefs can be right or wrong. EX: If I say, I think the Colorado Rockies have more World Series than the New York Yankees, that is a belief and it is wrong because the Rockies never won a WS title while the Yanks won 27. If I think 2+2=100, I would be wrong because it is 4. Opinions can not be right or wrong because they are personal preferences while beliefs can be a fact, misconceptions, or lies.
What you are referring to is a fact, something that can be independently observed and measured. A belief would be more along the lines of "Yankees Suck", a belief that caused Ben Affleck to refuse to wear a Yankees cap in "Gone Girl". :)
umm... you said beliefs had nothing in common with facts. but i don´t think it´s right. for example, let´s say i´m against wars because i don´t want people to die and kill for the interests of the ruling class. or i´m against a certain politician because they are corrupt and their policy is hurting people (like undermining labor rights or the civil rights of a minority, or destroying the environment). compare this to someone being against gay people because it´s ¨wrong and unnatural¨, they haven´t ¨found god¨ or shit like that. or hating and harassing a certain person because of their interests, appearance or something like that. when choosing your beliefs and making moral judgements of certain actions, you should ask yourself 2 questions: is that particular thing affecting the wellbeing of anyone? is it done consciously? only if the answer to both is yes, the action falls on a moral scale & you can have objective views on it. otherwise, it's just a personal opinion you don't have the right to force on others.
Phenominal exploration of the concepts!! And I'll say, your moral compass by which you form your beliefs is strong. That said, you're still applying moral judgment to facts. A corrupt leader going to war is a fact; how we respond is driven by our beliefs. Protest and demonstrate, or support for the sake of the party and the troops? Stay at home because what can one person do, or rally your friends and march? These actions are all driven by opinions and beliefs.
See, the problem with this is, he doesn't address the growing amount of people who predicate their opinion on false facts ... in his description of opinions and examples, they all follow the same principle feeling + fact ... sure, if that was the case, then you can agree to disagree, fine, it is then an actual opinion, nor right nor wrong. BUT if someone was to have feeling + provably false fact, then you aren't saying their opinion is wrong necessarily, you are saying the 'fact' they are underpinning their opinion is false - provably so. But because they (for what ever reason) don't want to budge - which is also very common these days, for people to be incredible stubborn - they won't want to see any of the evidence you have to provide to them that their underpinning "fact" is wrong. Maybe its an unconscious cognitive dissonance avoidance strategy, that if they admit their underpinning "fact" might be wrong, they might be forced to change their opinion or be forced into a situation of holding the opinion and corrected fact and there for been in a state of cognitive dissonance
Well put. The goal of this video was to offer a basic definition of these ideas, but as you pointed out, some very complicated human behaviors and psychological mechanisms (cognitive dissonance, as an example you offer) seem to be inextricably linked to these "basic" ideas. There's little doubt in my mind that "alternative facts" and fake news is a blight on our society today. My hope in this video was to first offer definitions, then delve into the stickier stuff. Check out the follow-up videos on Dogma and Critical Thinking to see where I started to go down this road.
I agree. Trouble is, it's not always easy to tell one from another. That's where respectful dialogue comes into play. Another tough thing, for me anyway.
What about when a conspiracy theorist does not accept facts, yet claims they’re being objective? I mean, I BELIEVE we landed on the Moon 6 times, which is also a demonstrable and objective fact. That makes my belief true and theirs false right? The facts stand on their own two feet. When I accept those facts as true and believe them, my opinion just happens to be true too surely? 🤔
Exactly. A fact is empirical, based on observable and repeatable proofs. A belief, by contrast, doesn't concern itself with what is fact and what isn't. So, you believing that we landed on the moon is a happy coincidence of your belief and the empirical facts. So yep, you totally get it!
There really isn't a difference it's a stance. A belief if you have an opinion it's a choice to be on a stance of what you believe. Now that doesn't mean opinion is right. Allowed to have that opinion no one can take the right away for you to have it. That doesn't mean however you can be wrong in your opinion. I can run a stop sign because I strongly feel like I can run it of course I can have that opinion but it doesn't make it true and I'm free to have that opinion no matter what. I'm still paying for the person's car if I run the stop sign. Feel free to have an opinion and even keep it if you want but pinions can still be right and wrong.
