Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (edition 2010)

by Kathryn Schulz

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939	25	22,431	(3.96)	75
Journalist "explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes relationships." She claims that "error is both a given and a gift -- one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves."… (more)

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Member:	claytonhowl
Title:	Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
Authors:	Kathryn Schulz
Info:	HarperCollins e-books (2010), Edition: Reprint, Kindle Edition, 420 pages
Collections:	Kindle Books, Your library
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Tags:	kindle, kindle-import, unread

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Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz

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Showing 1-5 of 25 (next | show all)

I received this book with high hopes from a GoodReads givaway a year ago. Try as I might I just couldn't get into it. I love the idea of talking about "Being Wrong" but the author just put to paper a string of often disjointed and incomprehenisble ramblings. Disappointingly the gems of stories she shares are lost and any point she attempts to make are beyond lost. This book could have been so much better with some clearly developed ideas supported by interesting and illuminating stories but it was just a plain mess. (

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AmandaPelon | Aug 26, 2023 |

This book explores the psychology of being wrong. Schulz's thesis is that while being wrong can sometimes be bad, even tragic, our attitudes toward wrongness are more negative than they should be. Although being wrong can lead to problems from embarrassment to death, most instances of being wrong provide an opportunity for learning and growth. Being wrong, or at least the psychological pattern of being wrong, is the basis of much humor and art. Humor often works by setting up an expectation and then defying it. Art is often meaningful in so far as it brings to awareness the gap between what is represented and the representation. Being wrong, in short, is how we learn and how we find meaning in life.

Being Wrong does not have the scientific depth of my favorite books in the popular psychology genre, but it was still a good read, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in how and why the mind gets things wrong. (

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eri_kars | Jul 10, 2022 |

To be fair, I didn't get very far. I liked the premise and the introduction was clever, but there just wasn't enough to justify a book. Could have made a great, punchy article. (

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Venarain | Jan 10, 2022 |

Great topic and explanation.
150 Pages of documentation. (

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evil_cyclist | Mar 16, 2020 |

Very good. The basic premise is that being wrong is not all that bad. Sometimes it is essential in one way or another. (

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Floyd3345 | Jun 15, 2019 |

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What is most cherishable about this bumper book of other people's booboos is its insistence that to experience error is, at its best, to find adventure – and even contentment. Schulz takes as her model Don Quixote, the knight-errant who was wrong about almost everything. "Countless studies have shown that people who suffer from depression have more accurate world views than non-depressed people," she points out.

added by mikeg2 | editThe guardian, Stuart Jeffries (Aug 28, 2010)

“Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" is an insightful and delightful discussion of the errors of our ways — why we make mistakes, why we don’t know we are making them and what we do when recognition dawns.

added by melmore | editNew York Times, Daniel Gilbert (Jul 23, 2010)

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Kathryn Schulz	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Barron, Mia	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Guardian First Book Award (Shortlist – 2010)

Ohioana Book Award (Finalist – Nonfiction – 2011)

Distinctions

Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction – 2010)

Notable Lists

30 Nonfiction Books That Are Sure to Make You Smarter

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Canonical title

Information from the Italian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.

L'arte di sbagliare. Avventure nel margine d'errore

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Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

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Epigraph

Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting that that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has not reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field, the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities. -- Benjamin Franklin, Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and Other Commissioners, Charged by the King of France, with the Examination of the Animal Magnetism, as Now Practiced in Paris (1784).

Man: You said pound cake. Woman: I didn't say pound cake, I said crumb cake. Man: You said pound cake. Woman: Don't tell me what I said. Man: You said pound cake. Woman: I said crumb cake. Man: I actually saw the crumb cake but I didn't get it because you said pound cake. Woman: I said crumb cake. Man: Well, I heard pound cake. Woman: Then you obviously weren't listening. Crumb cake doesn't even sound like pound cake. Man: Well, maybe you accidentally said pound cake. Woman: I said crumb cake. -- overhead in Grand Central Station, November 13, 2008.

Dedication

For my family, given and chosen. And for Michael and Amanda, at whose expense I wrote about what I knew

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Why is is so fun to be right?

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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Wikipedia in English (4)

Franz von Liszt

Kathryn Schulz

Mike McGrath

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/smartpeoplepodcast.com

▾Book descriptions

Journalist "explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes relationships." She claims that "error is both a given and a gift -- one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves."

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