I was wrong. You were wrong too. Admit it.

I thought that anti-vaxxers are a US-phenomenon, certainly not to be found among the dutiful Germans. Well, I was wrong. The WHO estimates only 93% of children in Germany receive both measles shots.

I thought that genes determine sex. I was wrong. For certain species of fish and reptiles that’s not the case.

I thought that ultrasound may be a promising way to wirelessly transfer energy. That was wrong too.

Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly developed a masochist edge. I’ve had an argument. Not my every-day argument about dark matter versus modified gravity and similar academic problems. This one was about Donald Trump and how to be wrong the right way.

Percentage of infants receiving 2nd dose of measles vaccine in Germany.
[Source: WHO]

Trump changes his mind. A lot. May that be about the NATO or about Afghanistan or, really, find me anything he has not changed his mind about.

Now, I suspect that’s because he doesn’t have an opinion, can’t recall what he said last time, and just hopes no one notices he wings that presidency thing. But whatever the reason, Trump’s mental flexibility is a virtue to strive for. You can see how that didn’t sit well with my liberal friends.

It’s usually hard to change someone’s mind, and a depressingly large amount of studies have shown that evidence isn’t enough to do it. Presenting people with evidence contradicting their convictions can even have the very opposite effect of reinforcing their opinions.

We hold on to our opinions, strongly. Constructing consistent explanations for the world is hard work, and we don’t like others picking apart the stories we settled on. The quirks of the human mind can be tricky – tricky to understand and tricky to overcome. Psychology is part of it. But my recent argument over Trump’s wrongness made me think about the part sociology has in our willingness to change opinion. It’s bad enough to admit to yourself you were wrong. It’s far worse to admit to other people you were wrong.

You see this play out in almost every comment section on social media. People defend hopeless positions, go through rhetorical tricks and textbook fallacies, appeal to authority, build straw men, and slide red herrings down slippery slopes. At the end, there’s always good, old denial. Anything, really, to avoid saying “I was wrong.”

And the more public an opinion was stated, the harder it becomes to backpedal. The more you have chosen friends by their like-mindedness, and the more they count on your like-mindedness, the higher the stakes for being unlike. The more widely known you are, the harder it is to tell your followers you won’t deliver arguments for them any longer. Turn your back on them. Disappoint them. Lose them.

It adds to this that public conversations encourage us to make up opinions on the fly. The three examples I listed above had one thing in common. In neither case did I actually know much about what I was saying. It wasn’t that I had wrong information – I simply had no information, and it didn’t occur to me to check, or maybe I just wasn’t interested enough. I was just hoping nobody would notice. I was winging it. You wouldn’t want me as president either.

But enough of the public self-flagellation and back to my usual self. Science is about being wrong more than it is about being right. By the time you have a PhD you’ll have been wrong in countless ways, so many ways indeed it’s not uncommon students despair over their seeming incapability until reassured we’ve all been there.

Science taught me it’s possible to be wrong gracefully, and – as with everything in life – it becomes easier with practice. And it becomes easier if you see other people giving examples. So what have you recently changed your mind about?