More about context

In my last blog about context, I posited that it is impossible to make a judgment about anything without considering the context.  When we make judgments that ignore context we are highly likely to be wrong. Across my desk today came a very startling example of this.  Look carefully at the picture below.  It appears to be a quite ordinary single vehicle accident where a pick up truck went through a guard rail and off the road.

The truck was travelling right to left at about 75 mph (abt 115 km/hr) when it broke through the guard rail to the right of the culvert where the people are standing pointing...  It did an end-over-end on the culvert platform and landed as you see it, to the left of the culvert facing the opposite way.  The 22 year old driver and the 18 year old passenger sustained only minor cuts and bruises.  It is kind of interesting that the truck could land where it did instead of going farther down.  I can only surmise that, from a physics standpoint, its forward motion - going at a high speed - was enough to carry it directly to the left. 

Good thing the passengers were wearing seat belts, at least I presume that they were since their injuries in an end-over-end accident were minor.  This kind of accident seems common enough that it is hardly worth noting.  However, there is a bigger picture here - the context - that totally changes its significance.

Look at the picture below:

Kind of makes things look different.  Again, I wonder if, when we get to the final accounting, if we will be given a view that we missed on a lot of things.  Could it end up making us think we didn't know anything at all?

(The comment that came with this one was, "If this guy didn't believe before, do you think he does now?)