Aeronautical decision making is a key ingredient in aviation safety, but I’ve just finished an excellent book that has revealed a side to this important topic that’s little discussed. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz takes an in-depth look at why humans find being right so gratifying, and how maddening it is to realize we’re wrong, and wrong so often.
This is not a book for pilots, and the author doesn’t offer any aeronautical examples. But as an aviator, on almost every page I could relate the her examples to aviation, pilots, and the decisions she makes. Perhaps the most important advice she gives, which applies to all human endeavor, is this: “Regardless of age, we are more alert to the errors of others than our own” and “pointing out the errors of others give those people little reason to change their minds and consider sharing our beliefs.”
She starts by exploring human factors and error studies and makes the point that not all errors are the same. Being wrong on where we left our car keys, she says in one example, is not the same as being wrong on the existence of weapons of mass destruction. She then goes on to show that “error is the borderland between vigorous mental life and dementia,” that error is vital to the process of creation and invention, and that error is often the start of adventure (good and bad). [Read more…] about Aeronautical Decision Making and ‘Being Wrong’