- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: Boo_Diddly
Opinion: A fact created in a person's mind.
Fact: An opinion that is widely accepted as the truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion
An opinion is a person's ideas and thoughts towards something. It is an assessment, judgment or evaluation of something. An opinion is not a fact, because opinions are either not falsifiable, or the opinion has not been proven or verified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
A statement of fact or a factual claim is a statement that is presented as an accurate representation of a situation, event, or condition, and that is capable of being either proved or disproved.
If a factual claim is incorrect, then it is called a mistake or an error (if the person making the statement believed it to be correct) or a lie (if the person making the statement did not believe it). A factual claim shown to be correct through examination is accepted as being supported. A factual claim that was believed to be true may later shown to be false (disproved), and a factual claim believed to have been disproved may later be shown to be true. A fact that was once a fact and hence becomes disproven may once again become a fact if the factual evidence supporting its validity becomes increasingly factual in light of new and, ultimately, factual evidence. Supporting evidence may become realised for a fact long after the fact itself was first established and, thus, a factual claim must be as fact once the Popperian elements of falsification have been exhausted - a process that never ends - to end with a fact accepted in the social. A belief that cannot be proved or disproved is an opinion.
End of story.