[fwonkas]

"There's a myth out there that has gained the status of a cliché: that scientists love proving themselves wrong, that the first thing they do after constructing a hypothesis is to try to falsify it."

This sounds horribly wrong to me. Isn't it the "myth" that the scientific community is self-correcting, not individuals?

[edited for grammar]

[snowwrestler]

I agree...I thought the common wisdom is that scientists like proving each other wrong. In my experience that is not a myth.

[hobin]

And not even that is necessarily true. I'm a physicist, and I would be wary of trying to prove any commonly accepted theory wrong - even if all my data points that way. Contrary to popular belief, getting data that is too non-mainstream and trying to defend it is often academic suicide in science. While science is one of the most rational fields to be working in, this is still a sad but true fact about the human condition.

[billswift]

And there is Feynman's point that it is less embarrassing to prove yourself wrong, especially if you can do it before you publish.