Factual Error

I heard a term recently I had not given any thought to, but it’s out there.  Factual error.  It refers to a fact being quoted but is often out of context and the conclusion reached is an error.
I think something I believed was a factual error.  I thought the heart was in the middle of the chest.  I have a heart.  That is a fact.  It is on the left.  Me thinking it was in the middle was an error.  A factual error.  I have seen factual errors in movies.  An actor was wearing a watch back before watches were invented.
I find I need to be really careful with that.  Sometimes I know a number of facts but the conclusion I reach is wide of the mark.  It is one of the reasons I think as I do in getting a whole picture rather than one person’s view.
Everyone has their own point of view.  Often what is thought is based on facts.  I need to be careful though that I base decisions on all the facts and not just selected ones, or ones only known to one person.  What something is based on may be true.  But what more facts can do is change a conclusion reached.
It is one of the reasons Stephen Coveys’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” made such an impression on me.  He talked of paradigm shifts.  I have talked about it before, but I come back to it in life, so it makes sense I come back to it in writing.
A man was on a train with his two kids.  The kids were running amuck.  That was a fact.  Some one approached the man to control his kids.  It was then he found out the kids mum had just died and they were all in a dilemma.  The kids were running amuck and that was a fact.  The conclusion of passengers that this dad could not control his kids was an error.  More facts gave a more complete picture.
It is one of the reasons I have such a hard time with the media.  It happens the world over.  I am fed limited information so I draw a particular conclusion.  Receiving all the information would change my outlook.
I may be told something about someone that is true, but only by gathering more facts can I reach a conclusion that may explain why.  At work one of the workers said to my boss how I lacked a sense of humour (that is understandable to me as I know I look pretty serious).  The boss suggested it is otherwise when you get to know him.  I looked serious.  Fact.  No sense of humour.  Error.
People that know me know I afford others the benefit of the doubt as that is what I would want for me.  To me great injustices can be done when conclusions are reached based solely on limited perceptions.  Limited perceptions lead to factual errors.