When I started teaching at EIT last month I provided an initial “framework of expectation” to students in each of the courses that I teach.
That being…
a) When reading text books, it is important to keep stated theories in perspective – that they are in fact simply just one “perception” of reality/ fact in each case.
b) When contributing input into class discussions try and substantiate your viewpoint with evidence/ facts.
In my view, offered opinions that can’t (or fail to) be substantiated with evidence/ facts should be classified simply as “opinions”. This doesn’t mean that such opinions are invalid. Rather, it simply means that the statement made should arguably best be regarded as “speculation” rather than proven fact.
During my time studying at Massey University I loved my thinking being challenged by a lecturer who taught us how to question the factual nature/ legitimacy of a statement in terms of it being “empirical” and/ or “tautological”. Both terms revolve around the idea that for a statement to be truly factual it must be able to be objectively proven to be irrefutably a fact. I’ve applied this thinking quite a few times over the years…it works well when challenging the legitimacy of points of view that are clearly simply unsubstantiated points of view (opinion); and causes your own thinking (and therefore your communications) to become more factually-based.