Kathryn Schulz Being Wrong Analysis

For my final essay, I would like to write about a belief that I did not have at the beginning of the semester. The belief is that committing errors is beneficial, and erring is completely normal. Although errors are generally inconvenient - and I cannot say that they are not harmful - I believe that they are beneficial in the long run. After reading Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong, and after writing a handful of essays and short papers which required research, my opinion of error has evolved and matured throughout the course. At the beginning of the course (and even before then), I looked at errors with disdain, because I focused on the negative consequences instead of the positive consequences. Essentially, I was a perfectionist, and I could not stand errors. But now, I am much more welcoming of errors, …show more content…
In Short Paper #3, I wrote about how the legal drinking age and driving age should stay the same, which was contrary to my original beliefs I wrote about in the first essay. Originally, I thought that the drinking age should be lowered and the driving age should be raised. After being forced to research evidence contrary to my beliefs, my beliefs changed. In that moment I found myself in error, because I realized that the opinion I held was wrong. This was the turning point in the semester for me, because I found myself questioning my beliefs - including my beliefs about error itself. What I learned from essay #1 and short paper #3 was that I should treat errors as opportunities to learn and become more knowledgeable about certain issues. I also learned to analyze my beliefs before acting on them, similar to thinking before speaking. Furthermore, I consider other people's beliefs more than I used to, because of the possibility that they are right and I am wrong. Short Paper #3 was a major contributor to my thesis above - that errors are beneficial in the long run - because I learned so much from writing