If a million people come upon an answer is that the right answer then?

Question

this will not be an easy answer so please take the time it deserves. think about it from all angles.

Answer 1

Yes and no.
Depending on perspectives, taken from a herd perspective the answer is yes, that much of a consensus would presumably be right.

Now from an individualistic perspective the answer can fall under either(heres where it would start to depend on the question and the answer), it could be yes assuming the individual was part of the group proposing the answer, or it could be no(and there could be almost an infinite number of reasons for saying no as well, again it depends on the question)

But your question also contains a hole in it as well, how many people are we talking about that are trying to answer this question? 3,000,000? 1,000,001? The population of the earth?

Answer 2

"History is the lie agreed upon." Voltaire

If a million people believe in something and they teach it to their kids and incorporate it into their culture, members of that culture will likely accept it as truth without question. Then there are the others who look to find objective truth that doesn't depend on popularity. They may have truths and ideas of their own that go against popular opinion. But people don't like changing their minds, so the old truth usually remains the rule, even if proved wrong on logical or empirical terms. This seems especially true for questions without clear answers. In such a case, most people rather believe in what they hope to be true instead of what is probably true. Thus, the true lie in born.

Answer 3

Certainly not! It can be the opinion of the majority... but just b'cas a million people think alike, it need not be the right answer!

There is difference bet a best answer and a right answer and in many cases, we never know what is the one that is right, b'cas we often forget to take a middle man look to it putting the likes and interests away.

Answer 4

No it's not the right answer. It needs to be scientifically proven to be "right"

It had been the whole world was convinced the Earth was flat. And that the moon was a God that passed through the heavens.

Right now more than a million people believe in Christianaity and another million believe in judiasm and another million are mulsim -- how can any of them be right?

Answer 5

It does not really matter how many people come up with same answer. It can be a million or 10 million.
It still only has a 50-50 chance of being right.

Answer 6

Is the world population a million? Certainly not. The rule of the majority might generate bad results. May be the million are non-virtuous. How can non-virtuous be right?

Answer 7

More than a million people sided with Hitler, and several million favoured Slavery! Were they right!

Thus Linclon's saying: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time!

Answer 8

well, not necessarily. this can be compared to how they teach accuracy vs. precision. if you're playing darts and you can hit one area over and over again (in this case, a million people agreeing to one thing) then you are precise. but this doesn't necessarily mean you're accurate because the bull's eye is the theoretically correct area (in this case, the correct answer might be different from the 1 million people's consensus)

Answer 9

Not necessarily. It would be the 'most obvious' answer perhaps, but not always the right one. Although, it COULD be the right one too. Depends on the question, and whether it's an 'opinion' question or a 'fact' question.

Didn't have to think about that too long. :)

Answer 10

Even if 6 billion agree, there will still be Galileos murdered for being right.