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emiged's review against another edition
4.0
Within the first two paragraphs of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, Ms. Schulz lays out a startling, thought-provoking assertion: “As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.
When I got to that point, I had to stop reading for a minute. Was she right? Do I, as she suggests most of us do, “go through life assuming that [I am] basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything”? In many ways, a truthful answer would have to be “yes.” Otherwise, I'd try to change. I wouldn't deliberately hold positions I thought were “off” or “mistaken” or “wrong.” Would I? Simply by virtue of the opinions being mine, it's obvious that I believe they must have merit – or be “right” – and that does seem to be assuming I'm “very close to omniscient.”
Except for all those times I'm not...
In general, having our “rightness” confirmed feels good, while discovering that we're wrong feels bad. But there's far more to it than that. Ms. Schulz delves deeply into the psychology of being right and being wrong, along with how our errors “edge us incrementally toward” truth. Our unconscious or intentional biases, the difficulty so many of us have uttering those three special words: “I don't know”, the peer pressure of groupthink. All of these very human tendencies illuminate how prone we are to not only err, but to be pretty sure that we aren't erring.
A woman, violently raped and beaten, confidently identifies her attacker first in a photo and then in a line-up, only to discover 16 years later, through DNA evidence, that she was wrong and the real perpetrator is behind bars, serving time for another assault. Hundreds of thousands of followers of a popular preacher fervently believe that October 22, 1844, will mark the end of the world, only to watch the sun rise on October 23. An Exalted Cyclops (head of a local klavern) in the Ku Klux Klan reluctantly agrees to work with an African-American leader in his North Carolina town to implement desegregation and they become fast friends. Being wrong can be humiliating, frustrating, devastating; but it can also open us to wild new and exciting possibilities.
Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of making mistakes, throughout Being Wrong, Ms. Schulz reframes many mistakes in a positive light, in terms of the benefits we reap not only from our errors, but from our basic, mortal ability to err. Being mistaken allows us the opportunity to change and to grow, to recognize that we are not omniscient, nor do we have through our limited perspective, a corner on Truth. “Acknowledging our mistakes,” she mentions, “is an intellectual and (especially) an emotional skill.” We demonstrate humility when we are able to recognize our errors – and lack of omniscience – and accept them with grace. Additionally, she states that “error in general startles, troubles and sometimes delights us by showing us that the world isn't as we imagined it to be.” In this way, being wrong is linked to creativity. Because human beings can be wrong, or see the world the way it isn't, we are able to create great imaginative works of art and powerfully rich fictional novels.
Ms. Schulz offers several suggestions towards how to take advantage of our mistakes and ability to err. She notes that “awareness of one's own qualms, attention to contradiction, [and] acceptance of the possibility of error,” rather than indications of weakness, are signs of “sophisticated thinking.” She reiterates that “listening is one of the best ways we can make room in our lives for our own fallibility” and is a skill that, while difficult to do well, can be learned and improved upon. Finally, she says, “all wrongness is optimism. We err because we believe, above all, in ourselves.” Being Wrong is going on my list of “books to re-read more slowly the second time” so I can glean more wisdom from its pages and learn how to turn my mistakes into progressive steps forward.
For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
When I got to that point, I had to stop reading for a minute. Was she right? Do I, as she suggests most of us do, “go through life assuming that [I am] basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything”? In many ways, a truthful answer would have to be “yes.” Otherwise, I'd try to change. I wouldn't deliberately hold positions I thought were “off” or “mistaken” or “wrong.” Would I? Simply by virtue of the opinions being mine, it's obvious that I believe they must have merit – or be “right” – and that does seem to be assuming I'm “very close to omniscient.”
Except for all those times I'm not...
In general, having our “rightness” confirmed feels good, while discovering that we're wrong feels bad. But there's far more to it than that. Ms. Schulz delves deeply into the psychology of being right and being wrong, along with how our errors “edge us incrementally toward” truth. Our unconscious or intentional biases, the difficulty so many of us have uttering those three special words: “I don't know”, the peer pressure of groupthink. All of these very human tendencies illuminate how prone we are to not only err, but to be pretty sure that we aren't erring.
A woman, violently raped and beaten, confidently identifies her attacker first in a photo and then in a line-up, only to discover 16 years later, through DNA evidence, that she was wrong and the real perpetrator is behind bars, serving time for another assault. Hundreds of thousands of followers of a popular preacher fervently believe that October 22, 1844, will mark the end of the world, only to watch the sun rise on October 23. An Exalted Cyclops (head of a local klavern) in the Ku Klux Klan reluctantly agrees to work with an African-American leader in his North Carolina town to implement desegregation and they become fast friends. Being wrong can be humiliating, frustrating, devastating; but it can also open us to wild new and exciting possibilities.
Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of making mistakes, throughout Being Wrong, Ms. Schulz reframes many mistakes in a positive light, in terms of the benefits we reap not only from our errors, but from our basic, mortal ability to err. Being mistaken allows us the opportunity to change and to grow, to recognize that we are not omniscient, nor do we have through our limited perspective, a corner on Truth. “Acknowledging our mistakes,” she mentions, “is an intellectual and (especially) an emotional skill.” We demonstrate humility when we are able to recognize our errors – and lack of omniscience – and accept them with grace. Additionally, she states that “error in general startles, troubles and sometimes delights us by showing us that the world isn't as we imagined it to be.” In this way, being wrong is linked to creativity. Because human beings can be wrong, or see the world the way it isn't, we are able to create great imaginative works of art and powerfully rich fictional novels.
Ms. Schulz offers several suggestions towards how to take advantage of our mistakes and ability to err. She notes that “awareness of one's own qualms, attention to contradiction, [and] acceptance of the possibility of error,” rather than indications of weakness, are signs of “sophisticated thinking.” She reiterates that “listening is one of the best ways we can make room in our lives for our own fallibility” and is a skill that, while difficult to do well, can be learned and improved upon. Finally, she says, “all wrongness is optimism. We err because we believe, above all, in ourselves.” Being Wrong is going on my list of “books to re-read more slowly the second time” so I can glean more wisdom from its pages and learn how to turn my mistakes into progressive steps forward.
For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
nocto's review against another edition
5.0
As fascinating a book as I've read for a long time. The writing style is rather quirky, and I can see it could annoy a reader but I liked it all the more for not being afraid to have an individual voice. I seem to have read a lot of books in the vague 'popular science'ish genre that regurgitate the same examples, the same psychological experiments, each time. Either this book was just different enough to what I've read before or the author had made a real effort to find new and interesting examples, whichever, I was grateful not to feel like I was reading a rehash of the same things once more.
I tended to think of the book as being not about being wrong, but the inverse, about how we know when we are right and when we should reconsider. I've been concerned about issues like confirmation bias (where basically you think evidence that agrees with you is good and that which disagrees with you is bad, so you only ever get more entrenched in the view you first held) for some years now, and I was pleased to find some useful discussion of how to counter it in this book.
Some quotes that stood out for me:
Definitely a book I will return to and one that made me think.
I tended to think of the book as being not about being wrong, but the inverse, about how we know when we are right and when we should reconsider. I've been concerned about issues like confirmation bias (where basically you think evidence that agrees with you is good and that which disagrees with you is bad, so you only ever get more entrenched in the view you first held) for some years now, and I was pleased to find some useful discussion of how to counter it in this book.
Some quotes that stood out for me:
As soon as we think we are right about something, we narrow our focus, attending only to details that support our belief, or ceasing to listen altogether.
You don’t need to be one of history’s greatest scientists to combat your inductive biases. Remembering to attend to counterevidence isn’t difficult; it is simply a habit of mind. But, like all habits of mind, it requires conscious cultivation.
“The genius of statistics, as Laplace defined it, was that it did not ignore errors; it quantified them,” the writer Louis Menand observed. “… The right answer is, in a sense, a function of the mistakes.”
Doubt, it seems, is a skill—and one that, as we saw earlier, needs to be learned and honed. Credulity, by contrast, appears to be something very like an instinct.
Our commitment to an idea, he concluded, “is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.”
Definitely a book I will return to and one that made me think.
nick_lehotsky's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent journey through error. A well-balanced blend of fact, research, anecdote, philosophy, and personal experience that proves more eye-opening with every chapter. I recommend you buy everyone you know a copy, and keep one for yourself.
dws405's review against another edition
5.0
Don't you hate being wrong? It seems like we all want to be right. But, truth be told, it is in being wrong that we learn, grow, expand our knowledge, and experience life. This book examines how as humans we are designed to make mistakes. We can't help it....it is just what we do. However, how do we feel when we make mistakes? Are we excited and happy? Do we look forward to learn from our mistakes? Or do we see mistakes as evidence of our weakness and would like to hide them in a closet? Embrace being wrong....because that tells us that we are living our life to the fullest! We are expanding and growing in knowledge.
tanyarobinson's review against another edition
3.0
Parts of this book were fascinating (particularly the chapters dealing with how we perceive our own errors vs. those of others). The last section, which basically expounds on the idea that to err is to be human, and without it there would be no art, science, or intelligent life, felt a bit pedantic. Just 3 stars from me.
bakalakos's review against another edition
4.0
Stop citing Freud as relevant psychological research.
mrblackbean11's review against another edition
1.0
I was immensely disappointed in this book. I was expecting some kind of actual data support or scientific conclusions, but this is a large collection of anecdotal evidence to support the author’s biases. Probably the most disappointing was the chapter on love where I expected the author to draw some sort of conclusion about why people were wrong in love, but there was nothing. I do not recommend.