THE DUNNING KRUGER EFFECT - people are to stupid to know they are stupid

Have you ever sat and listened to a person drone on about a subject they know nothing about? This week’s Fallacy is so easy, it’s stupid. It’s also the one that is the hardest to accept in ourselves. It’s called THE DUNNING KRUGER EFFECT. It’s based on research done at Cornell University that showed that the less competent  someone is on a subject,  the worse they are at assessing their level of  incompetence  in that subject.   The reverse is also true.  The more competent a person is, in a subject, the less competent they tend to judge themselves to be. Author, Charles Bukowski   puts it best, “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”  With that in mind, I would like to state, here and now, for the record, that I never know what I am talking about (wait  a second, is that a humblebrag?)


Comments

Seventh Grade said…
Dear Nick,

I am an editor of a Russian pop-sci newspaper (https://trv-science.ru/).
We seem to have absentmindedly used your picture in our publication: http://rationalcrank.blogspot.com/2010/03/each-of-people-in-this-picture-has.html.
The link to the publication: https://trv-science.ru/uploads/282N.pdf
It was found on the Internet without a copyright, and it is only after the publication that we found out that you hold the copyright.
We are terribly sorry for this and would like to amend it somehow.
Unfortunately, we are a Russian non-govermental and non-commercial initiative and cannot allow to pay for pictures. Do you think that we could mention you in our materials as a big thank you?

Yours,
Maria Molina
managing editor
Troitskiy variant — Nauka
maria.lakhuti@gmail.com
July 23, 2019 at 4:51 AM
The Rational Crank said…
if you are a pro-science publication I am okay with this one-time use. thank you for informing me.
August 29, 2023 at 9:35 PM
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