• LemmyHead@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    An opinion so strongly shared by a vast majority is worth being sceptic about.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      The correctness of an idea is totally independent of how many people believe it, and to believe otherwise is to be some dipshit who says “Idiocracy is a documentary!!!” and invoke Hanlon’s Razor instead of having actual good, materialist analysis of the world

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        I don’t think they are independent. Most people believe that the sky is blue when the sun is high and objects fall to the ground if they aren’t propelled or lighter than air. It is not an accident that they believe correct things, it is from experience and education. Most people have a huge amount of correct information that is held in common in their society along with the myths and superstitions and misconceptions, while that latter category [false beliefs held in common] are usually but not always things that fall outside of their experience.

        • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          addendum: they believe things which are almost correct or apparently correct. Heavier objects fall faster is not correct, but it is apparently correct because very light objects fall slower than heavy objects, and this appears to be constant unless you actually check and realize there’s a threshold. There’s no world outside of eurasia and africa is functionally true if you lack the nautical equipment to reach the americas, but factually wrong. You can’t get things too wrong without problems, but there’s a decent amount of leeway.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            It’s a heuristic thing. Denser objects are often* heavier, but it’s the density and not the weight that may make them fall faster (not accounting for how aerodynamic a given object is). It can produce incorrect judgements, especially if they attempt to articulate their intuitive knowledge as some precise-yet-abstract law, but in practical circumstances their intuitive knowledge produces the expected result the vast majority of the time, so pragmatically it’s reasonable to call it correct.

            *Certainly their weight is more noticeable, as is the lack of weight of less-dense objects, so perhaps this is the real source of the skew, a type of selection bias.

    • jonsnothere@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      You can of course always be skeptic, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I would argue most opinions shared by nearly everyone are probably valid.

      • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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        11 months ago

        Depends where they got the opinion. If it’s something that most people have experienced then they probably have a pretty grounded opinion but if its something they’re only aware of because of news then there’s reason for skepticism. Ask people on the street their opinions on something related to the economy and its a mess.

        • LemmyHead@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Opinions can easily be based on ignorance, copycat behavior, group pressure, is a product of that time, etc. Even experience can be a wrong basis for an opinion