Percieved Truth = Fact + Perspective

There are a few minor caveats/hypotheses to/about this phenomena.

I believe that the set of people whose Perspective = 0 in this equation is null.

That is, everyone has a perspective.

Most folks perspective scores are similar. That's not to say that they're the same, it's just that their perspectives are approxomately equally errant from fact--albiet some are errant in entirely opposite directions.

As the number of equal participants in a community increases, the truth equation of the community (that is, the average of all members' Perceived Truth scores approaches fact).

In communities where there is not equal participation (i.e. the relative weight of individual participant's truth scores are not equally represented in the cumulative Percieved Truth score of the group) will find that their Percieved Truth scores will, rather than regressing toward the mean, toward actual fact, gravitate toward the more extreme individual's scores.

This gravitation toward extreme scores happens in part because of the alienation and osteracism of some members (whose perspective the community would've otherwise needed in order to approach facts.)

If I'm right about this, it's the very act of strict adherence to ABSOLUTE truth that may drive communities farther from actual fact.

Of course, little if any of this is empirically verifiable.

[via a badchristian blog]