In science, being wrong is normal. Expected, even. But it rarely feels that way. Somewhere along the line, being wrong started looking like a flaw, something to avoid, downplay, or hide. That’s unfortunate, because it’s also how nearly everything important gets figured out.

A hypothesis misses the mark? Good. That means someone had the guts to ask a question and try to answer it. The result didn’t support the theory? Great. That’s data. That’s clarity. That’s one less assumption pretending to be a fact.

Wrong isn’t the opposite of progress, it’s part of progress. Most scientific understanding is built on top of what didn’t work before. Failed explanations, abandoned models, discarded conclusions. Science grows by getting things wrong, not by getting everything right.

There’s a kind of quiet confidence in accepting wrongness. It means the work matters more than the ego. It means the ideas are strong enough to survive inspection, and flexible enough to be replaced.

The mistake is thinking science is about certainty. It’s not. It’s about curiosity. It’s about asking better questions, running better tests, and being okay (sometimes even relieved) when the answers surprise.

The ones doing it right aren’t afraid to be wrong. They just keep going.

And the ones who can say, “I was off on that” without flinching? Those are the people worth watching. There’s real strength in that. Real trust. It makes the whole room smarter.

— João