Learning To Love ‘Being Wrong’
There are so many good quotes from this little NPR interview and I suspect her book, Being Wrong. One that sticks with me as someone trying to run a business, is statement about the field of science having a culture of celebrating and rewarding learning rather than being right.
There is no long term value in being right; there is a lot in learning. I want my business to reward long term value.
CONAN: Yeah, no, I understand that. And indeed, she writes a lot about the scientific method, which you’re talking about there, Ryan. And indeed, when you find something’s wrong, it’s almost celebration. You’ve proved something wrong, and now you can get on to a better truth.
RYAN: Right.
CONAN: And go ahead, Kathryn.
Ms. SCHULZ: Right. This is one of the distinctive things about science that, in theory - it’s not always in practice - scientists are actually setting out to disprove hypotheses, whereas most of the rest of us just kind of latch onto an idea and look for everything that supports it.
And, you know, the caller mentioned that perhaps this is a sign of superior intellect. And I’m not sure if I would exactly agree with that, but I think the important thing we can learn from scientists is that this way of thinking about hypotheses and evidence is something we can all learn.
Scientists are good at this because they’ve been trained to do this, because they work in a culture where it is expected and permissible to be wrong.
CONAN: And rewarded.
Ms. SCHULZ: And rewarded, exactly.
I’m looking forward to reading Being Wrong.
