Is Accepting others mistake wrong in acaemia? I am a PhD student after the mid stage. I come to know a very strange thing about academia that acceptance is a bad thing. Let me define acceptance, many time i hear the statement of other collegues including my supervisor, research fellows etc. What happens that I always tried to accept their arguments even if they are wrong. If they are wrong, Instead of being harsh, I try to accept their argument then explain my argument. The problem arises due to this is that many times these people try to manuplate me. Like in TA work I listen to the person who comes to me (student) no as I am listening to him he starts thinking that I have not understood his statement, which is  not always the case. 

In short I accept others mistake, errors etc, but when it comes to me that if i am wrong other people show their very rude behaviour. I don't Is this common in academia? What kind of person I should become the one who point out others mistake and make them realise that they are wrong or the one who accept others wrong things in a positive way?
If they are wrong, Instead of being harsh, I try to accept their argument then explain my argument. 


I think the problem may be this false dichotomy. 

Imagine a student comes to you and says "I think the Earth is flat because I went to the top of a tower in the midwest and everything looks flat."


One option (what it sounds like you're doing) is saying okay, that makes sense, but there is evidence the Earth is round -- satellites, circum-navigation experiences, etc. 
Another option (what it sounds like you're complaining about) is saying no, that's not a good argument, the Earth is large enough that apparent flatness on the scale of ~50 miles does not imply that the entire 26,000 mile Earth is flat.


Of these, the second has a clear advantage, in that it actually addresses the actual reason the student is confused. Just telling the student how to do it properly is no more helpful than telling him to read the textbook; explaining where the student's thinking is incorrect is where you can be really helpful. 

Of course, same goes for colleagues rather than students -- when dealing with a disagreement, you need to both defend your ideas and refute their ideas. Otherwise you're both just restating your positions and not actually resolving anything. 

Now the reason I called this a false dichotomy is because there is no need to be harsh when refuting others' ideas. The best way is to ask leading questions so that the they realizes their mistake all on their own. Usually, doing this requires an excellent understanding of the subject matter. When dealing with colleagues on research topics, one may not have a strong enough understanding to do this gracefully, resulting in what seems like harshness (or one may just be a jerk).