Yeah, Bell said it pretty well. Murdoch did the right thing, it just turned out to be wrong. Imagine yourself driving a car, say 50 miles per hour, and an animal jumps in front of you, whats your reaction? In most cases, its to slam on the brakes and turn away from the object. This is pretty much what Murdoch tried to do. Reversing the engines was like Titanic slamming the brakes, since just putting them into "Stop" would be like letting off the accelerator in a car. His instinct told him this was the best thing to do, because I doubt he had time to say "well what if I steer Titanic head-on to the berg....maybe...". He just did what he knew was best.