Does the Dunning-Kruger Effect explain most of what is posted on this forum?
Aonghas Shrugged
2010-02-23 01:38:08 UTC
Does the Dunning-Kruger Effect explain most of what is posted on this forum?
Seven answers:
2010-02-23 06:36:42 UTC
Xenon - "The Big Bang Theory" is a sitcom about physics geeks. The joke is they are supposedly fabulously brainy, but in terms of real life common sense, they are as dumb as they come.
I think the DK theory may partially explain why some people who have been spoon-fed the standard global warming theory may come to think they really know enough about it to debate it, but i would suggest that it is actuated more by a combination of evangelical zeal and misanthropy. ("Earth good, people suck" kind of thing).
I liken it to people who call themselves Animal Lovers, when really it's more that they don't like people and the fact that animals can't disagree with them (i don't suggest all or even most animal lovers are like this, but some of them certainly are).
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Dana1981
2010-02-23 09:34:01 UTC
The Dunning-Kruger effect combined with people letting their political biases cloud their judgment explain most of what's posted here.
Many times I've said if this site were only people asking sincere questions and others giving informed answers, the global warming section would only have about 25% as much traffic, if that. The majority of the answers to any given question are usually given by people who don't even understand the most basic climate science and vastly overesimate their knowledge - as per the Dunning-Kruger effect. But the main reason they answer is to further their political agendas. The Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't apply to the Physics section, for example, because there are no political motivations to deny the laws of physics.
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2016-05-31 03:08:27 UTC
Oh, yeah this is classic. I saw it in a sidebar in Playboy over 20 years ago. "Incompetent people lack the cognitive ability to recognize their own incompetence." Conversely, competent people tend to underestimate their abilities, as mentioned, because they are aware of their limitations. It's more than just the disconnect between science and the public, it's pervasive in our society. Our society has a winner take all mentality that rewards risk taking and aggression. Incompetent, extroverted people run things because, well, they are extroverted and aggressive and tend to overestimate their abilities, not because of any inherent competence. And they forge ahead in spite of negative feedback. Competent people tend to underestimate their abilities no matter how competent they are. They know what they don't know and so they are cautious and careful in planning, moving forward deliberately and carefully. And they get run over and pushed aside by the aggressive types. Of course better education would make a difference. Taking a cue from answers above, I'll grant that it may never make a difference with the bottom quintile, but overall it couldn't hurt. We are in such a state of specialization now that very few people get the big picture. Masses of poor ignorant incompetent people run around like they know everything and there's no reasoning with them. If we had some baseline of useable knowledge imparted in school, like basic physics, basic economics and make everybody take shop and home ec so they know what it means to make something maybe we could turn this around. True knowledge is humbling. If people were educated in Global Ecology and the true state of the world environment I think we would be much more careful and much less reckless. A guy I worked with once said to me "There's two types of people. One type carefully lines up all the nails and all the boards and then starts building. The other type walks up, grabs a nail and a board and starts hammering." Needless to say, we didn't get along much. He could never understand why sh*t went awry and we were always having call backs and dissatisifed customers. They could never understand why I was chronically aggravated, why it took me longer to get things done, why I never produced the margins the other guys did. Well they made some big bucks sometimes but also pissed off and lost a lot of customers along the way. I worked slow and steady and had many loyal, repeat customers, albiet somewhat less profitable. And you know what? Management didn't care. He got rewarded and promoted cause he got the job done quick and we got paid. They saw those pissed off customers as casualities of doing business and the focus should be on -wait for it- finding new customers! New customers for what? To bilk? Guess what people, we are bilking the environment.
SenOrtega
2010-02-23 01:49:59 UTC
First of your watch too much "The Big Bang Theory". Secondly I'd say 90% of the questions fielded on this forum could be answered with a simple Google search. Most people are just too overwhelmed by all the shiny links of the internet. A direct quote from my mother "All your movie watching is using all my Internets energy up". She also did not realize that there was such a thing as "right-click" for about 4 years after getting her PC...
"Like German tourists, the stupid are everywhere!" -Arnold Judas Rimmer