July 21, 2022 • 10 mins
Why It Hurts So Bad to Be Wrong
Why is it so threatening to realize that you might have been wrong about something? Turns out there's an evolutionary basis for this. Plot spoiler: that evolutionary strategy was awesome in the stone ages, but maybe not so much now.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.
(00:02):
And I'm Mark Lindquist.
And this is.
Madcap Radio.
Hi, Jane.
(00:23):
How are you? Good. How are you?
So this is our inaugural podcast, baby.
Talking to my husband, not my baby.
I would like to talk about being wrong.
Well, that's about time.
No, not wrong with youhoney, I'm never wrong with you.
(00:43):
This is in life about being wrong. Okay.
Mm hmm.
In that case, I stand corrected.
I want to start the conversationwith talking about
what does it taketo be a great dog breeder?
Because that's what we always aspire todo, is help people be great dog breeders.
(01:04):
So, honey, what do you think it takesto be a great dog breeder?
Oh, geez, is that.
I wasn't ready for that.
I .... wasn’t ready for that one Oh, man.
A lot of a lot of patience.
Fortunately, I have a handy answer.
Ready? I happen to have the answer.
Actually, what makes a good dogbreeder to me is no different
than what makes you great at anything.
(01:26):
Which is three things.
First is knowledge, right?
You have to know how to do it.
You got to know how to fly the plane.Right, honey?
My husband is a retired airline pilot,so we use a lot of
airline pilot
comparisons.
That's because it'sthe only thing I understand.
Mm hmm.
(01:47):
Well, thank God you just stood it.
Well,it would have been bad if you didn't.
So, you know, you need knowledge.
You need to know how to do it.
But then you need experience
to transformthe knowledge into competency.
Because just knowing, you know, booksmarts doesn't do you any good.
You have to do it. True.
But just doing something
(02:10):
againand again does not make you good at it
unless, and this is the big third onethat we're going to be talking about,
you have the intellectual humilityto learn from your experience,
and especially
when that new experience conflicts
(02:31):
with what you think you already know, i.e.
you find out that you were wrong
about something.
So without any doubt,I mean, we can agree, right?
(02:51):
The third one is the hardest one.
Oh, absolutely. Right. Without a doubt.
Without a doubt.
Because nobody likes to be wrong.
Why do you think we don't really liketo be wrong?
It's humiliating.
It's humiliating, right?
Well, wrong doesn't win.
Mm hmm.
I mean, on the outward view,wrong doesn't win.
Right. Wrong. It's failure.
There's a lot of things that go along withbeing wrong that aren't pleasant.
(03:14):
Mm hmm.
And it's interesting, because there'sactually an evolutionary basis to this.
Our sort of evolutionary brain
job is to make order out of chaos.
So we create these stories,and we will fight very hard
any informationthat conflicts with the story
(03:35):
and people form tribes around stories.
I mean, not just tribes like peoplethat didn't live in suburbia tribes,
but even on the Internet,
you'll hear people say, well, that'snot my tribe or my tribe is this or that.
And people, you know, theythey have these stories.
And and when information conflictswith that,
(03:58):
it's really almost physically violent
to to the people to have to admit
that they were wrong.
I'm all ears.
You're all ears.
I mean, it's deep in our DNA.
In fact,they're they actually did studies on
(04:21):
people who were proven wrong,
like cults that were proven wrong.
Like there was this one cult that
believed that spaceshipswere going to come
and take them away, and everybody else onthe earth was going to perish.
And the the date happened.
And this did not happen, obviously,because we're making this podcast
(04:45):
from the US, not from Mars.
So but then when it didn't happen,
you think, what, that everybody'sgoing to be like, well, that was a crock.
I'm going home by that.
Well, that was wrong.We were wrong about that.
No way. That is not what happened.
That is not what happened.
They rewrote the factsto coincide with our story and they said,
(05:07):
Oh, well, the reason it didn't happenis because we prayed hard.
And that's that'swhy the spaceships didn't come.
But they've studied this phenomenon.
And the question iswhy is it so persistent
for humansto believe things that just aren't true?
And the answer isthat there is an evolutionary advantage
(05:28):
to irrational belief
when it when it connects you to a tribe,
because they found in societies
where, you know,people are still fighting like tooth
and nail or were fighting tooth and nailjust for survival against each other,
that the societies that
held irrational beliefs,even in the face of facts,
(05:53):
were better able to defendbecause they would
defend somethingcompletely irrational right to the death.
And it would it would defend their tribe.
So their tribehad an evolutionary advantage.
So that's greatif you're living, you know,
in the jungle and literally fighting tooth
and nailwith the neighboring tribe for food.
(06:13):
But in modern society,where we're technology and information
driven, that is kind of the kiss of deathto be that way.
I mean, kiss of death,if you want to be good at anything.
(06:39):
This is why
I'm starting with this for our podcast,because we are doing that breeder course
From Newborn to New Home,which is following what we do
with the litter from birth to placement.
And there's a couple things in therethat are different from what we did
in Puppy Culture.
I mean, we've evolved some, some things.
(07:01):
And I think, you know, we have to tell
a little bit of the back storyabout why we changed things.
And also to put it out there that
changing the way you do things
is not a sign of weakness.
It's a sign of strength.
It's a sign that you're ableto learn from your experience and improve.
(07:24):
And we are always improving.
That is definitely our mantra.
Well then why call it wrong?
Well,I mean, I put out wrong because again,
I want people to feel that in their soul,like, ooh, no, I don't like to be wrong.
No, I'm wrongbecause that that's like you have to have
a different conditioned emotional responseto being wrong.
(07:46):
Like right now your natural geneticconditioned emotional.
It's not even conditioned.It's your emotional response.
It's not conditioned to being wrongis going to be very negative
because if it's threatening your placein the tribe
when you're wrong, when you're wrong,when your tribe is wrong,
(08:07):
that that is cataclysmicon a very cellular level for people.
But the evolved person
has a
conditioned emotional responseto being wrong, of excitement, of saying,
Oh, this could be my opportunityfor growth.
In fact, that's my only opportunityfor growth is when I'm
doing something and somebody comes upwith another way to do it
(08:30):
and I see, Oh, I might be wrongabout the way I'm doing something.
The evolved person is excited.
Well, that's that is
I would assume, a learned behaviorover time.
Exactly.
Which is why I'm saying at Puppy Culture,
I feel like our focus has switchedfrom specifically like
(08:53):
this is the way you do things tothis is how you think about things
and this is how you're able to assimilatethe information that's in front of you
because that is what makes youa great breeder or a great anything.
Yeah. Goes throughout life.
Throughout life.
All right. I'm excited.What's on the list?
What are the three things?
(09:13):
I think we should call this
being wrong in three acts.
Okay, okay. Continue.
Act one,
low birth weight puppies.
Okay.
I don't know what being wrongand low birth weight puppies
has to do with anything, but.
(09:34):
Well, it all shall be revealed shortly.
All right.
Act Two Food Wars.
Okay.
Act three
early off premises.
socialization.
Well, well, yeah, I know that one.
(09:55):
Well, that's exciting.I'm looking forward to this.
Okay.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I don't know. I might be wrong.
A play on words.
Oh, good. one, honey.
Just went right over my head. Oh.
Okay. Ready for act one?
Sure.
Okay.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.
(00:02):
And I'm Mark Lindquist.
And this is.
Madcap Radio.
Hi, Jane.
(00:23):
How are you? Good. How are you?
So this is our inaugural podcast, baby.
Talking to my husband, not my baby.
I would like to talk about being wrong.
Well, that's about time.
No, not wrong with youhoney, I'm never wrong with you.
(00:43):
This is in life about being wrong. Okay.
Mm hmm.
In that case, I stand corrected.
I want to start the conversationwith talking about
what does it taketo be a great dog breeder?
Because that's what we always aspire todo, is help people be great dog breeders.
(01:04):
So, honey, what do you think it takesto be a great dog breeder?
Oh, geez, is that.
I wasn't ready for that.
I .... wasn’t ready for that one Oh, man.
A lot of a lot of patience.
Fortunately, I have a handy answer.
Ready? I happen to have the answer.
Actually, what makes a good dogbreeder to me is no different
than what makes you great at anything.
(01:26):
Which is three things.
First is knowledge, right?
You have to know how to do it.
You got to know how to fly the plane.Right, honey?
My husband is a retired airline pilot,so we use a lot of
airline pilot
comparisons.
That's because it'sthe only thing I understand.
Mm hmm.
(01:47):
Well, thank God you just stood it.
Well,it would have been bad if you didn't.
So, you know, you need knowledge.
You need to know how to do it.
But then you need experience
to transformthe knowledge into competency.
Because just knowing, you know, booksmarts doesn't do you any good.
You have to do it. True.
But just doing something
(02:10):
againand again does not make you good at it
unless, and this is the big third onethat we're going to be talking about,
you have the intellectual humilityto learn from your experience,
and especially
when that new experience conflicts
(02:31):
with what you think you already know, i.e.
you find out that you were wrong
about something.
So without any doubt,I mean, we can agree, right?
(02:51):
The third one is the hardest one.
Oh, absolutely. Right. Without a doubt.
Without a doubt.
Because nobody likes to be wrong.
Why do you think we don't really liketo be wrong?
It's humiliating.
It's humiliating, right?
Well, wrong doesn't win.
Mm hmm.
I mean, on the outward view,wrong doesn't win.
Right. Wrong. It's failure.
There's a lot of things that go along withbeing wrong that aren't pleasant.
(03:14):
Mm hmm.
And it's interesting, because there'sactually an evolutionary basis to this.
Our sort of evolutionary brain
job is to make order out of chaos.
So we create these stories,and we will fight very hard
any informationthat conflicts with the story
(03:35):
and people form tribes around stories.
I mean, not just tribes like peoplethat didn't live in suburbia tribes,
but even on the Internet,
you'll hear people say, well, that'snot my tribe or my tribe is this or that.
And people, you know, theythey have these stories.
And and when information conflictswith that,
(03:58):
it's really almost physically violent
to to the people to have to admit
that they were wrong.
I'm all ears.
You're all ears.
I mean, it's deep in our DNA.
In fact,they're they actually did studies on
(04:21):
people who were proven wrong,
like cults that were proven wrong.
Like there was this one cult that
believed that spaceshipswere going to come
and take them away, and everybody else onthe earth was going to perish.
And the the date happened.
And this did not happen, obviously,because we're making this podcast
(04:45):
from the US, not from Mars.
So but then when it didn't happen,
you think, what, that everybody'sgoing to be like, well, that was a crock.
I'm going home by that.
Well, that was wrong.We were wrong about that.
No way. That is not what happened.
That is not what happened.
They rewrote the factsto coincide with our story and they said,
(05:07):
Oh, well, the reason it didn't happenis because we prayed hard.
And that's that'swhy the spaceships didn't come.
But they've studied this phenomenon.
And the question iswhy is it so persistent
for humansto believe things that just aren't true?
And the answer isthat there is an evolutionary advantage
(05:28):
to irrational belief
when it when it connects you to a tribe,
because they found in societies
where, you know,people are still fighting like tooth
and nail or were fighting tooth and nailjust for survival against each other,
that the societies that
held irrational beliefs,even in the face of facts,
(05:53):
were better able to defendbecause they would
defend somethingcompletely irrational right to the death.
And it would it would defend their tribe.
So their tribehad an evolutionary advantage.
So that's greatif you're living, you know,
in the jungle and literally fighting tooth
and nailwith the neighboring tribe for food.
(06:13):
But in modern society,where we're technology and information
driven, that is kind of the kiss of deathto be that way.
I mean, kiss of death,if you want to be good at anything.
(06:39):
This is why
I'm starting with this for our podcast,because we are doing that breeder course
From Newborn to New Home,which is following what we do
with the litter from birth to placement.
And there's a couple things in therethat are different from what we did
in Puppy Culture.
I mean, we've evolved some, some things.
(07:01):
And I think, you know, we have to tell
a little bit of the back storyabout why we changed things.
And also to put it out there that
changing the way you do things
is not a sign of weakness.
It's a sign of strength.
It's a sign that you're ableto learn from your experience and improve.
(07:24):
And we are always improving.
That is definitely our mantra.
Well then why call it wrong?
Well,I mean, I put out wrong because again,
I want people to feel that in their soul,like, ooh, no, I don't like to be wrong.
No, I'm wrongbecause that that's like you have to have
a different conditioned emotional responseto being wrong.
(07:46):
Like right now your natural geneticconditioned emotional.
It's not even conditioned.It's your emotional response.
It's not conditioned to being wrongis going to be very negative
because if it's threatening your placein the tribe
when you're wrong, when you're wrong,when your tribe is wrong,
(08:07):
that that is cataclysmicon a very cellular level for people.
But the evolved person
has a
conditioned emotional responseto being wrong, of excitement, of saying,
Oh, this could be my opportunityfor growth.
In fact, that's my only opportunityfor growth is when I'm
doing something and somebody comes upwith another way to do it
(08:30):
and I see, Oh, I might be wrongabout the way I'm doing something.
The evolved person is excited.
Well, that's that is
I would assume, a learned behaviorover time.
Exactly.
Which is why I'm saying at Puppy Culture,
I feel like our focus has switchedfrom specifically like
(08:53):
this is the way you do things tothis is how you think about things
and this is how you're able to assimilatethe information that's in front of you
because that is what makes youa great breeder or a great anything.
Yeah. Goes throughout life.
Throughout life.
All right. I'm excited.What's on the list?
What are the three things?
(09:13):
I think we should call this
being wrong in three acts.
Okay, okay. Continue.
Act one,
low birth weight puppies.
Okay.
I don't know what being wrongand low birth weight puppies
has to do with anything, but.
(09:34):
Well, it all shall be revealed shortly.
All right.
Act Two Food Wars.
Okay.
Act three
early off premises.
socialization.
Well, well, yeah, I know that one.
(09:55):
Well, that's exciting.I'm looking forward to this.
Okay.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I don't know. I might be wrong.
A play on words.
Oh, good. one, honey.
Just went right over my head. Oh.
Okay. Ready for act one?
Sure.
Okay.
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