Skip to main content

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error.

 

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error.

 

Once upon a time, everybody knew the sun revolved around the Earth -- until we realized it didn't. From celestial mechanics to the best way to avoid traffic, there are a bunch of things that everyone believes right now that are just plain wrong. And while it's hard to admit we got it wrong, Kathryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong, argues that it's time to embrace our errors. After all, she says, making errors is inevitable. "The kinds of things that we can make mistakes about are essentially unlimited in number," Schulz tells NPR's, Neal Conan. But being wrong can be unsettling, even scary. At the heart of why we hate being wrong, Schulz says, is that "we're terrified of feeling out of control. We're terrified of not having the answers, and we would sometimes rather assert an incorrect answer than make our peace with the fact that we really don't know." And when we finally realize we're wrong, Schulz says, "we want to fall into a hole in the ground or we want to disappear. We want to die."

PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW:


Kathryn Schulz on Being Wrong

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WANTS WANTS WANTS VERBS ACTIONS

Wants. Wants. Wants. Wants are what create drama. Wants are what give life to the character. Wants are what the waking individual is never without. Wants are perpetual. Wants cause action. Wants create conflict. Wants are the very energy man's life and the   System of Wants  is the aspect of character to which the actor gives his relentless and obsessive attention. The actor tracks down the wants. Everything else is classified as a condition. The golden key is the character's system of wants. And after I have studied and structured and tested and assumed the character's system of wants, then, and only then, am I permitted to occupy their inner life and express their personality. Of all the questions I ask the character about themselves. the overwhelming majority have to do with their wants: "What do you want?" "What do you want now?" "What is your ultimate want?" "What do you want from the other person?" "What do you want in the ...

ACTIONS OBJECTIVES 101

  CREATING AN ACTION   Having narrowed the focus of wants to the choice of specific verbs, let us take the first of two steps in refinement. An adequate expression of the want is a verb by itself.  A superior, more subtle, and certainly more actable expression of the want will include the person to whom the want is directed   and the response sought from that person  so that a first-class actor expressing an individual want of the character would include all three elements:                                   VERB                 RECEIVER + RESPONSE I want               to WIN              Gloria's  admiration.   I want              to AWAKEN       my father's enthusiasm.   I want  ...

Overcoming Resistance & Sabotage

How You Sabotage Yourself (and What to Do about It)   6 Most Common Ways to Self-Sabotage Status quo bias When you prefer the current state of affairs, you perceive any changes to the status quo as a loss. It leads to powerful resistance to change. Even if you want to achieve your goals, you can’t help but feel you’re losing something. Consequently, you sabotage yourself and give up in order to return to the previous state of things. Studies suggest that losses hurt twice as much as gains would feel good. Consequently, if you want to set effective goals, the reward you’ll get from them has to be at least twice as powerful as the feeling of loss you’ll experience because of the sacrifices you have to make. Restraint bias Research shows that people who overestimate their ability to control impulses like hunger, drug cravings, and sexual arousal are more prone to overexpose themselves to temptations. Due to this bias, you’re likely to sabotage yourself if you believe you’re great at c...