{
    "href": "/post/2010/11/06/start-with-opinions-not-facts/",
    "relId": "2010/11/06/start-with-opinions-not-facts",
    "title": "Start With Opinions, Not Facts",
    "author": "pmjones",
    "markup": "html",
    "tags": [
        {
            "href": "/tag/smart/",
            "relId": "smart",
            "title": "Smart",
            "author": null,
            "created": null,
            "updated": [],
            "markup": "markdown"
        }
    ],
    "created": "2010-11-06 15:47:02 UTC",
    "updated": [
        "2010-11-06 15:47:02 UTC"
    ],
    "html": "<blockquote>\n<p>\nTo get the facts is impossible. There are no facts unless one has a criterion of relevance. Events by themselves are not facts.</p>\n<p>People inevitably start out with an opinion; to ask them to search for the facts first is even undesirable. They will simply do what everyone is far too prone to do anyhow: look for the facts that fit the conclusion they have already reached. And no one has ever failed to find the facts he is looking for. ...</p>\n<p>The only rigorous method, the only one that enables us to test an opinion against reality, is based on the clear recognition that opinions come first -- and that is this is the way it should be. Then no one can fail to see that we start out with untested hypotheses -- in decision-making as in science as the only starting point.  We know what to do with hypotheses -- one does not argue them; one tests them. One finds out which hypotheses are tenable, and therefore worthy of serious consideration, and which are eliminated by the first test against observable experience.\n</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>From \"The Essential Drucker\" (2001) page 252.</p>\n"
}