as a title for your post (cf. Marc, Poo et al. haven't confessed, but blamed the times that changed ;)
Admittedly, the proposed title needs to be qualified with respect to both science and scientists.
There are many scientists who voluntarily admit their mistakes and correct them. Professor F. William Lawvere (https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~wlawvere/) wrote to me many times correcting a mistake he made in an earlier email; he exemplified 'self-correcting' not only in private communications, but also in public posts, publications, and lectures (but for my pathological anxiety about preparing for my upcoming lecture on Education, I'd have listed all those, which I'll do after my lecture). For now, in this context, I'd like to note that Grothendieck (https://agrothendieck.github.io/), who insisted on publishing all the mistakes he made in the course of writing Pursuing Stacks (one of his many magna opera; https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~wlawvere/FarewellAurelio.htm), is a model scientist in many respects. In closing, just to hint at his brilliance, Grothendienck (re)defined a part of a whole as both itself and its relationship to the whole (e.g., a subset of a set is not a set, but a one-to-one function), which is readily understood by laypeople, although mathematicians in need of updating their understanding of 'subset/subobject/part' seem to find it purty perplexing to the point of acting unawares ;)
Over time, science has "admitted" more errors and corrected them than any other field of endeavor. The proof is in the enormous value added. In most subjects, debates roil on with no resolution or "progress" until the next hot topic emerges, and then repeat. Science is easy to fault because it is so transparent in its methods and results. Little to apologize for on balance. Onward!
Dear Professor Thorp,
If I may, would you consider:
Science is self-correcting, but scientists aren't
as a title for your post (cf. Marc, Poo et al. haven't confessed, but blamed the times that changed ;)
Admittedly, the proposed title needs to be qualified with respect to both science and scientists.
There are many scientists who voluntarily admit their mistakes and correct them. Professor F. William Lawvere (https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~wlawvere/) wrote to me many times correcting a mistake he made in an earlier email; he exemplified 'self-correcting' not only in private communications, but also in public posts, publications, and lectures (but for my pathological anxiety about preparing for my upcoming lecture on Education, I'd have listed all those, which I'll do after my lecture). For now, in this context, I'd like to note that Grothendieck (https://agrothendieck.github.io/), who insisted on publishing all the mistakes he made in the course of writing Pursuing Stacks (one of his many magna opera; https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~wlawvere/FarewellAurelio.htm), is a model scientist in many respects. In closing, just to hint at his brilliance, Grothendienck (re)defined a part of a whole as both itself and its relationship to the whole (e.g., a subset of a set is not a set, but a one-to-one function), which is readily understood by laypeople, although mathematicians in need of updating their understanding of 'subset/subobject/part' seem to find it purty perplexing to the point of acting unawares ;)
Thanking you,
Yours truly,
posina
Over time, science has "admitted" more errors and corrected them than any other field of endeavor. The proof is in the enormous value added. In most subjects, debates roil on with no resolution or "progress" until the next hot topic emerges, and then repeat. Science is easy to fault because it is so transparent in its methods and results. Little to apologize for on balance. Onward!