I wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that some academic has learnt that people who make a mistake, learn their subject better.

No surprise there.

There are occupations where most of the training involves knowing what to do when things go wrong.  Be it train driving, flying an aircraft, or working as an IT shift supervisor.  Or as I like to put it:

Frog diamagnetic levitationAny monkey can sail through calm waters.  It takes knowledge and experience for when things go wrong.

I’m surprised it took research for an academic to realise this.  I’m off to see if the folks at Ig Nobel have heard.

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