Maybe She's at Stage Three Already

During dinner tonight I was telling Andrea about a book I've been reading which talks about three stages of critical thinking ability. To summarize briefly:

1. The individual assumes all questions have a correct answer and that if you consult an expert or authority you'll find out what it is.
2. The individual realizes that some questions do not have a single answer and thinks that this means that all opinions are therefore equal.
3. The individual understands that while some questions cannot be decisively answered, you can differentiate between options based on the level of reasoning used to support that option.

That's really brief, obviously, and not really the purpose of this post, except that it's how we segued into the main part below. I was making the point to Andrea that a lot of our institutions gets frozen at stage two, with the prime example being the way the mainstream media will frequently claim objectivity by presenting two opposing viewpoints on an issue, whether or not those opinions are equally valid ("one group says the Earth orbits the sun, while the other group says that the Earth orbits a mechanic named Fred...")

At this point, Fiona looked up from the pattern she was making in her ketchup to ask "what's an opinion?" (I was surprised she was paying attention at all).

"It's what you think," Andrea replied.

"Do you like onions?" I asked, bringing up the foodstuff we're constantly having to pick off of her plate.

"No!" she grimaced.

"Well, I do," I replied.

"In your opinion onions are bad," Andrea explained. "But in Mommy and Daddy's opinion they're good."

"Do you like pink clothes or black clothes?" I asked, picking another easy one.

"Pink."

"And I like black," I said, being the good New Yorker who knows which color's going to hide the dirt best.

"But you're wrong, Daddy."

"What?"

"Pink is better."

Hmm. She didn't seem to be quite getting it.

"Do you like blue or green?" Fiona asked, taking the lead.

"I like blue better," I replied.

"That's wrong. Mommy, do you like blue or green?"

"Green," Mommy replied.

"Very good!" Fiona declared. "You get a star!"

So: I stand corrected. Onions are bad. Pink>Black and Green>Blue. Apparently ALL opinions can be assigned a value judgment. In Fiona's world, anyway.