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Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

$7.99

Author Kathryn Schulz

Format Paperback

Publisher Ecco

Category Psychology

To err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher. If being wrong is so natural, why are we all so bad at imagining that our beliefs could be mistaken, and why do we react to our errors with surprise, denial, defensiveness, and shame? In Being Wrong, journalist Kathryn Schulz explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes relationships�whether between family members, colleagues, neighbors, or nations. Along the way, she takes us on a fascinating tour of human fallibility, from wrongful convictions to no-fault divorce; medical mistakes to misadventures at sea; failed prophecies to false memories; "I told you so!" to "Mistakes were made." Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Darwin, Freud, Gertrude Stein, Alan Greenspan, and Groucho Marx, she proposes a new way of looking at wrongness. In this view, error is both a given and a gift�one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves. In the end, Being Wrong is not just an account of human error but a tribute to human creativity�the way we generate and revise our beliefs about ourselves and the world. At a moment when economic, political, and religious dogmatism increasingly divide us, Schulz explores with uncommon humor and eloquence the seduction of certainty and the crises occasioned by error. A brilliant debut from a new voice in nonfiction, this book calls on us to ask one of life's most challenging questions: what if I'm wrong?

Authors

Kathryn Schulz

Additional Info

  • Release Date: 2011-01-04
  • Publisher: Ecco
  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9780061176050
SKU Condition Store Shelf Price  
1892458 Very Good Fern Park 48-3-5 $7.99 Add to Cart