The less we know, the better we think we are

Image by J Wynia via Flickr

While cruising Can’t See the Forest, I ran into this remarkable article:

The Dunning-Kruger effect is “‘an example of cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.'” They therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average.”

Here’s a bit more:

clipped from en.wikipedia.org [I]n skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” […] [Dunning and Kruger] hypothesized […] Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. Kruger and Dunning examined self-assessment of logical reasoning skills, grammatical skills, and humor. After being shown their test scores, the subjects were again asked to estimate their own rank, whereupon the competent group accurately estimated their rank, while the incompetent group still overestimated their own rank […] [P]articipants scoring … in the 12th percentile … on tests of humor, grammar, and logic … estimated themselves to be in the 62nd … Meanwhile, people with true knowledge tended to underestimate their competence. A follow-up study suggests that grossly incompetent students improve both their skill level and their ability to estimate their class rank only after extensive tutoring in the skills they had previously lacked.

Boy oh boy; we have Pandora’s Box here.

Some make their case with “I think that … ;” others insist “I don’t think so, I know so“—often to the point of mocking uncertainty.  Yet the former often have the better argument; they don’t have to “know so.”

Think of places where certainty-covering-questionable-thinking crops up:

• politicians (“I know how to …”)
• web conversations (ever see a troll write “I wonder if  …?”)
• sermons ([blush] How much I once knew!)
• ratings-driven media personalities (Rush Limbaugh? Bill Maher?)

“Illusory superiority” looks like a pretty common commodity, eh?

Should such black and white arguments be yellow flags?

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Tags: humility, reasoning, reasonable, logic, thinking, thought, competence,, politics,, web+2.0,, knowledge,, argument,, trolls,, rants, Monte Asbury