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A man of genius makes no mistakes,” James Joyce wrote 100 years ago. “His errors are volitional and portals to discovery.”
Most people with good sense would accept that we can and should learn from accidental failures. It would be impossible to progress in anything, after all, without taking the odd misstep, and by understanding how we tripped up, we can avoid stumbling in the future.
Few would advocate making intentional mistakes, however. Yet a pair of fascinating new studies have shown that this may be the best way to learn new information. Consciously blundering, even when you know …
