The fact vs opinion thing is indeed a common thing. One especially common and tricky version of it is a stand that says “What I’m saying is based on science, so it isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact”—I know because I used to believe and say that myself… then I read the sequences and Scott Alexander and it blew that notion out of the water for me. Scott especially because he has several good posts on how science is hard, and isn’t as simple as “ask question > conduct experiment > acquire truth”. After reading those posts I immediately lowered my confidence in a bunch of my beliefs.
The fact vs opinion thing is indeed a common thing. One especially common and tricky version of it is a stand that says “What I’m saying is based on science, so it isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact”—I know because I used to believe and say that myself… then I read the sequences and Scott Alexander and it blew that notion out of the water for me. Scott especially because he has several good posts on how science is hard, and isn’t as simple as “ask question > conduct experiment > acquire truth”. After reading those posts I immediately lowered my confidence in a bunch of my beliefs.