Mistakes

I feel kind of sad to discover that the myth that Persian rug makers put deliberate mistakes into their rugs to show respect to Allah is just that, a myth. I liked the idea that skilled artisans that probably didn't knowingly make mistakes in their craft felt the need to muddy the potential perfection of their craft by introducing a mistake. In our mind's eye, anything we make will be perfect. Reality just get's in the way.
    Some people would argue that the 'deliberate mistake' is something of an arrogance. Make a deliberate mistake because an accidental one couldn't possibly happen. I instead like to think of the 'deliberate mistake' as a kind of prayer. A stitch knitted when it should have been purled, the wrong coloured thread on a tapestry. That action feels like an acknowledgement to God that the skills, talents if you like to draw that parable parallel, are God-given. To the person who later finds the mistake perhaps they too will think on the devotion of the maker of the item and perhaps their own spirituality.

    OK, I now feel inclined to link this in with science.
A true scientist of the scientific method must admit mistakes. If they collect data that contradicts their hypothesis they must admit that this is what they find. There should be no shame also in admitting they made an error in an experiment. Something broke, someone read a figure out wrong. To quote The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy book 4 So long and thanks for all the fish by Douglas Adams:

"But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.”  - Wonko the Sane

While looking for that exact quote I also found this one by Jules Verne from Journey to the Centre of the Earth:

“Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.” 

Too much science it seems, especially in geology these days, is firmly set in dogma. People don't admit they are wrong after being shown evidence to the contrary. Data is manipulated. Lines are drawn in the sand. 

The deliberate mistake is not searched for. The null hypothesis isn't sort.

When I was at high school we were taught to calculate errors in every possible way. The errors of the ruler, the container, how much liquid was lost in transference, how actuate the mass balance was.

There's no such thing as a 5 sigma error test in geology like there is in physics. More shame on us.