10. THE "I AM RIGHT" "YOU ARE WRONG" PARADOX
Recently i have been doing some work around the dynamics of the breakdown of marital relationships.
In particular, i have recently been seeking to address situations in which a husband and wife have fundamentally opposite views.
One of the observations i made was that in situations of real tension, i have encountered cases where the situation presents more or less as follows:
1) The husband states that he loves his wife BUT on the particular point in dispute she is entirely at fault and in error.
2) The wife states that she loves her husband BUT on the particular point in dispute he is entirely at fault and in error.
In other words, she believes he is 100% in error and he believes she is 100% in error.
Recently i found myself confronting what i hold to be the reality that it is not possible for them both to be 100% correct or 100% in error. It seems to me that there is a reasonable basis to assume, as a first approximation or simplifying assumption, that they are each approximately 50% in error and 50% correct.
Applying this in practice in a particular situation produced what seem to me to be significant results in terms of shifting a specific situation thereby validating the assumption at a very basic level.
I am not suggesting that this is a universal principle although it does seem to me that it is probably valid in many and possibly most cases. Not only in terms of marital dispute but in terms of dispute generally.
What i also concluded from this example is that if the wife is firmly attached to the extreme value of her position and the husband is firmly attached to the extreme value of his position the probability of a close to 100% breakdown in communication seems to me to be almost inevitable.
The above conclusions were reached during the same period that i was engaged in the personal introspection about my beliefs that has been mentioned previously and which has occasioned this article.
In studying the web site referred to previously, i was struck by my perspective that there were statements in support of evolution that it seemed to me that i could not reject and there were statements in support of creation that i was also not willing to reject. There were other statements in support of both positions which, as set out above, i was not able to accept.
As a simplifying assumption, i would therefore like to suggest the possibility that, on the assumption that neither side is deliberately in error, both sides are probably approximately 50% in error.
In other words, it seems to me that there is a distinct possibility that about half of what those supporting creation have to say is true, even if their interpretation may be coloured by other beliefs, judgmental language, etc. It also seems quite possible that the same applies to those who support evolution, half of what they say is true.
I cannot prove this 50:50 split since my perception of "correct" and "incorrect" is based on my current position which i cannot prove is accurate and cannot prove is objective. Nevertheless, i do think the principle is useful in this context.
In other words, i am suggesting that "evolutionary creation" is possible and may be the factual answer. I am also suggesting that many of the apparent differences relating to evidence that can be physically viewed and many times even touched are in fact differences of interpretation NOT differences of data.
It seems to me that there are many cases where someone on either side has a piece of physical evidence that they interpret as having a particular meaning and, because of the interpretation, the other side rejects the evidence. It seems to me that in cases like this both sides resort to positioning, the use of judgmental language, conspiracy theory, etc. It does not seem to me that summarily rejecting another persons evidence is in the interests of peaceful coexistence of a supposedly advanced species (if one subscribes to evolution) or of a being supposedly created in the image of the Almighty (if one subscribes to creation).
I would like to suggest that it would help if both sides chose to be more open about the other side's evidence and chose to be open minded about seeing whether some aspect of their interpretation could be meshed with some aspect of the other side's interpretation.
Please will you consider whether you are willing to examine and consider such a view.