Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

Description

Being wrong is an inescapable part of being alive. And yet, we go through life tacitly assuming (or loudly insisting) that we are right about nearly everything - from our political beliefs to our private memories, from our grasp of scientific fact to the merits of our favourite team. Being Wrong looks at why this conviction has such a powerful grip on us, what happens when this conviction is shaken, and how we interpret the moral, political and psychological significance of being wrong.Drawing on philosophies old and new and cutting-edge neuroscience, Schulz offers an exploration of the allure of certainty and the necessity of fallibility in four main areas: in religion (when the end of the world fails to be nigh); in politics (where were those WMD?); in memory (where did I leave my keys?); and in love (when Mr Right becomes Mr Wrong).

Kathryn Schulz has written for a number of US publications from Rolling Stone to the New York Times, on subjects as varied as right-wing film festivals to the impact of antidepressant use on Japanese culture. In 2004 she was awarded a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism.

"Intellectualism made fun! . . . Schulz's call to embrace flaws and errors as potentially beneficial will surely draw legions of follwers."--Newsweek "An amazing book. . . . I don't know when I last read a book as stimulating, as thoughtful, and as much fun to read."--Harold S. Kushner, author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" "Schulz draws on philosophers, neuroscientists, psychoanalysts and bit of common sense in an erudite, playful rumination on error."--Washington Post "A mirthful and wise diagnosis of what ails us: Schulz dances us through science, psychology, and literature in a sparkling history of (and ode to) human error."--Publishers Weekly "So, please take this advice: Read BEING WRONG, because it's the right thing to do."--Associated Press "[A]n unusual examination of the virtue and peril of being wrong and of all the ways we think we know things that just ain't so."--Boston Globe "[A]n insightful and delightful discussion of the errors of our ways. . . . Schulz remains good company -- a warm, witty and welcome presence. . . . [S]he combines lucid prose with perfect comic timing. . . . "Being Wrong" is smart and lively."--New York Times Book Review "Kathryn Schulz's brilliant, spirited, and necessary inquiry into the essential humanity of error will leave you feeling intoxicatingly wrongheaded."--Tom Vanderbilt, bestselling author of TRAFFIC "Engrossing.... In the spirit of Blink and Predictably Irrational (but with a large helping of erudition)... Schulz writes with such lucidity and wit that her philosophical enquiry becomes a page-turner."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Kathryn Schulz has given us a brilliant and remarkably upbeat account of the long history of human error. If Being Wrong is this smart and illuminating, I don't want to be right!"--Steven Johnson, bestselling author of THE GHOST MAP and EVERYTHING BAD IS GOOD FOR YOU "Kathryn Schultz is engaging, witty and fascinating as she uses a full arsenal of academic research, colorful stories, philosophical arguments and personal anecdotes to create a riveting account of why we, mostly, have been wrong about being wrong."--Frans Johansson, author of THE MEDICI EFFECT "Both wise and clever, full of fun and surprise...[BEING WRONG] could also be enormously useful--there are very few problems we face...that couldn't be helpfully addressed if we we were willing to at least entertain the idea that we might not be entirely right."--Bill McKibben, author of EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet "A funny and philosophical meditation on why error is mostly a humane, courageous and extremely desirable human trait. [Schulz] flies high in the intellectual skies, leaving beautiful sunlit contrails....It's lovely to watch this idea warm in Ms. Schulz's hands."--Dwight Garner, New York Times "Schulz possesses playfulness even as she brings the reader to tears... "Being Wrong" has a heartbeat."--Huffington Post