Subject: An opinion on opinions
Date: May 13 14:55:19 1999
From: Michael Hobbs - Hummer at isomedia.com


I have to agree with those who said the opinion sounded like fact. I inferred
that there must be something to back up the statement. MY thoughts, when I
read the declaration, was that there was probably some kind of governing body -
the "American Association of Wildlife Rehabilitators", or somesuch, who
accredited the centers, and that "any rehabbers worth their salt" would have
meant "any which had been accredited". I presumed the Association dictated the
policy in question. That was how I interpreted the statement.

It was a surprise to me that this had been a judgemental opinion upon those who
believed differently.

As for MY OPINION, there is no reason why people should not play god. People
created problems by introducing species. That was playing god. It is
therefore perfectly ethical to DO SOMETHING to alleviate those problems, even
if that means killing animals (humanely).

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== hummer at isomedia.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Steven Kimball <skimball at halcyon.com>
To: Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 1999 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: An opinion on opinions


> Don,
>
> What do you perceive as the difference between a statement of fact and a
> statement of opinion? As I understand the question, all such declarations
> are statements of opinion, even though the speaker thinks what he says it is
> true or factual. It is then up to the listener to decide whether the
> opinion is true or false. (I'm not talking about questions of taste here
> such as whether one like's mayonnaise or not-personally I hate it but I see
> no way that my preference can be anything other than personal). Discourse
> would be very tedious indeed, if we had to say "in my opinion" every time we
> wished to express our ideas on something. I think that often what people
> mean when they say "Well that's your opinion" is that 1) they disagree and
> 2) since it's only an opinion, they don't have to take it seriously.
>