Benefits in being wrong

When was the last time you have read or heard academics or scientists announcing that their theories have been proved wrong? Daniel Drezner asks:

Why is it so hard for scholars to admit when they are wrong? It is not necessarily concern for one’s reputation. Even predictions that turn out to be wrong can be intellectually profitable—all social scientists love a good straw-man argument to pummel in a literature review. Bold theories get cited a lot, regardless of whether they are right.

Part of the reason is simple psychology; we all like being right much more than being wrong.

However Drezner writes that there are benefits in being wrong:

the benefits of being wrong are understated. Schulz argues in Being Wrong that "the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change."

How has blogging influenced the stigma of being wrong?

Far less stigma attaches to admitting that one got it wrong in a blog post than in peer-reviewed research. Indeed, there appears to be almost no professional penalty for being wrong in the realm of political punditry. Regardless of how often pundits make mistakes in their predictions, they are invited back again to pontificate more.

For all the intellectual benefits of being incorrect, however, how one is wrong matters. It is much less risky to predict doom and gloom than to predict that things will work out fine. Warnings about disasters that never happen carry less cost to one’s reputation than asserting that all is well just before a calamity. History has stigmatized optimistic prognosticators who, in retrospect, turned out to be wrong.

Read more here.