I think if you have this little information it’s better to refrain from mentioning it. Without details like the friends’ level of domain expertise, their basis for dismissal, your level of trust in your acquaintance’s judgement, &c there’s no way to judge the credibility of this thirdhand report, and thus no good reason to update on it. However, most people involuntarily privilege the hypotheses they’re presented with, so by sharing this kind of underspecified information as though it were something concrete enough to give weight to, you risk causing people to update in epistemically unjustified directions, either because they trust you too much, or because the low standards of evidence shown here cause them to erroneously update against the position you express (a lá The main way I’ve seen people turn ideologically crazy).
I think if you have this little information it’s better to refrain from mentioning it. Without details like the friends’ level of domain expertise, their basis for dismissal, your level of trust in your acquaintance’s judgement, &c there’s no way to judge the credibility of this thirdhand report, and thus no good reason to update on it. However, most people involuntarily privilege the hypotheses they’re presented with, so by sharing this kind of underspecified information as though it were something concrete enough to give weight to, you risk causing people to update in epistemically unjustified directions, either because they trust you too much, or because the low standards of evidence shown here cause them to erroneously update against the position you express (a lá The main way I’ve seen people turn ideologically crazy).