On the whole, though, being wrong when we’re very young is less a series of isolated incidents (as we regard it in adulthood) than a constant process—inextricable from learning, inextricable from growing up. Forming theories about the world, testing them, and figuring out where they went wrong is the very stuff of childhood. In fact it is, literally, child’s play. Scientists, parents, and educators all agree that kids play to figure out the workings of the world. What looks, to an adult, like a game of blocks or a stint in the sandbox is really one giant, joyful science experiment. Moreover,
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