Americans struggle to tell the difference between fact and opinion: Study

[dgauss]

6. I wonder if they included the idea that statements of fact could be factually incorrect.

One example statement is "The Earth is between 5,000 and 10,000 years old."

I could understand if people realized this statement is not factually correct and were a little uncertain how to answer. It may seem like a quibble but in effect they were partially measuring if people understood the difference between:

1) A statement of fact
2) A statement that is a fact

If they had made that distinction clear I think their results might have been a little different.

Another statement was "President Barack Obama was born in the United States." There are some people who actually believe he was not. If those people also didn't understand the difference between "a statement of fact/a statement that is a fact", then they were also measuring something else, like misinformation, along with the former misunderstanding.

**On edit, I see reply 5 was questioning along similar lines.