Colin McEnroe Show: The Wondrous World Of Wrongness
It may be wrong but it feels so right!
Published: Jul 13, 2010
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Colin McEnroe Show: The Wondrous World Of Wrongness
Today's show is dedicated to Paul the Octopus. Paul, as you probably know, lives in an aquarium tank in Oberhausen, Germany and he has become quite famous for correctly predicting the outcome of every single World Cup soccer match about which his opinion was solicited. He does this by choosing one of two possible flags in his tank.
The world loves Paul, I think, because he does not pretend to be anything other than an octopus. The world is full of experts who bring to any discussion a tremendous amount of savvy which seems, half the time or more, to be worth absolutely nothing.
Paul gets it right. There are various competing theories -- by experts -- about why or how this is happening, but another way to look at it is that getting things right is kind of an illusion anyway -- a snapshot in and out of which past and future variables flow.
Unless I'm totally wrong.
You can join the conversation about wrongness. Leave your comments below. E-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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The troubling thing about being wrong is that while you're in the middle of experiencing it it's absolutely indistinguishable from feeling right.
-Kathryn Schulz
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Comments
E-mail from Anthony
I heard most of Tuesday's show on being wrong and re-listened online. I enjoyed the conversation with your guests and wrote down the book titles mentioned. I want to track down the Boiling Oil Project - perhaps I can use it in my classroom. (The story - not the oil.) I must take issue however with your characterization of the New York Times as a usually reliable source of information. As a corporate media outlet I put no stock in their product - which is not journalism. (Visit Fair.org for evidence.) To paraphrase Amy Goodman of Democracy Now (heard on WWUH and LinkTV): the press must be The Fourth Estate, not For the State. The NYT is NOT the "best of the bunch" as characterized by guests Catherine Schulz and David Freedman. I was angered to hear Ms. Schulz state that "some people... not your major listeners..." actually dismiss the NYT's worth. This was followed by laughter from you and your guests. I do not take the Times seriously at all - they are cheerleaders for our corporate government. While I do listen to some NPR programming (Car Talk, Wait Wait), they are not my news source, not my favorite, and no longer the recipient of my pledge dollars. (See www.wwuh.org for good public affairs programming.) Nor do I agree with your assessment of NPR as a "trusted brand name". (Fair.org again) I have waged e-mail battles in the past about their narrow, conservative, corporate message. Lets see how much airtime they give to Independent, Green or other "third party" candidates this election cycle. Thanks for trying and listening.
Email from Jack
I'm not sure whether the Fail Meister who appeared near the end of today's show will be dismayed or amused to learn that "Schadenfreude" has 4 syllables, not just 3 -- Scha-den-freu-de. (This may be news to you, too.)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?schade01.wav=schadenfreude
At the least, he has some new material for his website.
Perhaps you could arrange for that clever German fellow to make another appearance to explain how to pronounce Schadenfreude and other useful German words and phrases.
E-mail from Jeff
Katherine stated when talking about the Talmud that it's better to "let an innocent person free than to fall prey to group-think". What she probably meant is "let a guilty person free..."
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