I could not even get them to see that my opinion (that all opinions are not equal) was as good as theirs (that all opinions are equal). But it had to be, I said. Because if all opinions are equal, then the opinion that all opinions are not equal is just as good as the opinion that all opinions are equal (yet another bit of evidence that their opinion made no sense, that their opinion held that two things were equally true, when only one could be true).

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What is going on here, I ask.

To some extent I know. For a long time, many people held opinions not backed the evidence - on racial inequality, on the right of people to enslave other people, on the right of one sex to dominate over another, on the right of people to declare another religion wrong, on the right of people to take land away from other people. So Christians were sure that their religion was the right one, etc.

Good that we stop holding those opinions.

Easy to go to the other extreme - once again not backed by evidence - that no opinion is better than another.

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In a way, there has been a lack of change. Many unfounded opinions used to be widely held. Now the equally unfounded opinion that all opinions are equal is widely held (except by the most traditional students, who often are adamant about opinions founded on belief, not on evidence - especially relating to gays and lesbians, male-female equality, sex outside marriage).

To ask for evidence asks a lot more of people. It asks them to think, and to think logically. It asks them to go out and back their opinion, to found it on as much information as possible. It asks them to figure out which source is reliable and can be used as evidence, and to what extent. A quick rote answer is not enough.

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A question I am left with is: what has happened in the local education system (Montreal, Quebec, Canada - but it is highly likely that the phenomenon is more widespread than that) that students come out of high school with the opinion that all opinions are equal - and at the same time they hold many opinions where they are convinced they are right (abortion is a woman's right or it is not; the government is wrong or right is all kinds of ways, especially here in Quebec around language; gay marriage is right or wrong).

What are you saying, I want to ask.