Holiday open thread: Correct me! Point out all my mistakes.

I’ve made lots of mistakes, and failure has been good for my intellectual development. But this only works if I learn from my errors, which in turn requires me to be aware that I got things wrong in the first place. Four times I’ve had errors that were big enough that I issued formal corrections. And then there was the time that I messed up on a statistical analysis that I’d posted on the blog and someone pointed out my error, causing me to spend a couple months figuring out how to do better.

There’s also this talk I gave on learning from mistakes and this one too. And also this.

And I’ve made various smaller slips over the years that I’ve had to correct (for example here and here). It happens!

And there was the embarrassing error in the second paragraph of this article. I think that particular mistake was introduced by the copy editor, but I’ll still have to take responsibility for not carefully checking and letting it slip through.

An opportunity for all of you

Given all this, it only stands to reason that there must be a bunch of things I’ve done wrong that I haven’t yet realized were in error. Or mistakes I’ve made that I’ve corrected, but the corrections are not prominent enough and people continue to miss the point. Or simply some places where we disagree: things I’ve written where you think I’m wrong, even past my insistence otherwise. Fair enough.

This is your chance! I’m speaking to my friends as well as the haters out there. Let me know what I’ve done wrong. This is your chance to help me learn from my mistakes, to force me to confront disagreements, also a way for you to share your gripes with others. Point out my mistakes right here in the comments, and tens of thousands of readers will be made aware of them.

It’s your opportunity to help me out, to embarrass me, and to get your perspective out there. So go at it. Complain loudly. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.