I can see where someone who classes themselves as an itellectual may find it a despicable cop-out. I however, am just your average joe and dont really find it that despicable at all.
It's one thing to be humble about your intellectual goals. It's entirely another thing to come to a highly controversial debate-oriented forum, engage in debate, and then back out with "Well, everybody's entitled to his opinion." Of course everybody's entitled to his opinion; if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't have shown up.
The reason we have debate is to hear theories contradictory to our own and allow them to compete so as to come to a better understanding -- and maybe a consensus -- about the way things really are. You don't have to have university degrees to do things like that or to want to; any "average joe" can take part. I was raised in a highly opinionated family, which for the most part lacked a university education. Many of whose opinions I came to despise, but I didn't say, "Well, they're entitled to their opinion;" I tried to argue them out of it, because that's what they taught me.
If you disagree with what somebody says, you should speak out. Silence leads to apathy: "Take sides; neutrality helps the oppressor, never the oppressed."
-Erasmus