Scientists spend an extraordinary amount of time worrying about being wrong and take great pains to prove others so. In fact, science is the one area of discourse in which a person can win considerable prestige by proving himself wrong.
-- Sam Harris (emphasis in original)
I would love to agree with the sentiment in that quote, but offhand, I can't think of any examples.
Certainly the day-to-day job of the scientist is to prove himself or herself wrong in as many ways as possible, so as not to leave that job to others. But what eventually yields prestige is being right.
One possible counter-example I can think of is the Michelson-Morley experiment, the "most celebrated null experiment in the history of science" to quote one short-breathed biographer. But by several accounts I have read it only became "the most c...
This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.