Who's your favourite screw-up in history?
(I'm leaving this category wide open so you can take it positively or negatively: someone who screwed up in a way that actually worked out wonderfully in the end, someone who screwed up massively in one field but still did good elsewhere, or someone who just failed so spectacularly that the extent of their incompetence is almost beyond comprehension. Your call! 🙃)
@MLClark Pliny the elder. He wrote the first encyclopedia but was later ridiculed for fictionalizing a good portion of it. He lived near Pompeii and redeemed himself by organizing a rescue for people who were trapped on the beach when Vesuvius erupted.
Dying in the middle of an act of bravery definitely helps to improve one's reputation, too!
And even with so much wrong in that encyclopedia, it still contained a great deal of vital information for later scholars, and some sound research besides.
So it's certainly possible to screw up and still set a decent baseline for those who come after you.
Great call, J. Everett.