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To make a real honest mistake, you have to go
in earnest after one thing and be open to whatever you actually find. Like Christopher Columbus. He set out to find a new route to the Indies. And he
failed. But he made do with a new world.
We need to encourage failures like Columbus. Not whine that Columbus didn't discover
America because there were already people on it. That's like saying fish discovered the
ocean he crossed because they were already in it. Besides, that kind of talk discourages
exploration. And that can be deadly.
Like America, penicillin was discovered by accident. It literally
flew in through an open laboratory window and killed some bacteria in an open petri dish.
So we're supposed to say Alexander Flemming didn't discover it?
Like Columbus, the scientists who eventually did something about Flemming's discovery had
to go against the grain. In their day our brightest medical minds insisted, "anything
that can kill infection will eventually kill the patient."
Flemming's discovery opened the route to a new world of miracle drugs.
Now there are so many new developments, the problem is keeping open-minded doctors
informed of them, and getting reactionary doctors off routine treatments and into the
better ones that keep coming along.
So what are you going to do the next time somebody discovers something you already know?
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