The Weekend Wonk: Dunning Kruger Effect
May 19, 2012
Ever been frustrated trying to make a reasoned, sensible, logical argument to a denier?
There’s a reason why it is so difficult. Let’s take a look at the Dunning/Kruger effect. Have you ever noticed that often times the most incompetent people have the highest opinions of themselves, especially when debating? This video explains why.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
May 20, 2012 at 12:15 am
Before “free market” think tanks successfully exploited the D-K effect, people whose inflexible beliefs contradicted the best understanding of reality were simply referred to as cranks.
May 20, 2012 at 12:26 am
Hey, wildweatherdan, thanks for the post. I remember experiencing Fremdschamen reading the name omnologos. Dunning Kruger is built right into it.
May 20, 2012 at 1:05 am
‘Fremdschamen”
so, the Germans have a word for it!!!
I feel that way all the time!!
May 20, 2012 at 4:49 pm
It always comes down to find somebody else to blame. Two D-K victims to add to the list!!
May 21, 2012 at 9:52 am
It always comes down to keeping a list. Another D-K victim to add to the list!!
Uh, wait a second…
May 20, 2012 at 12:30 am
@Mike, you nailed it with the Idol example. Now I know how to explain D-K in a minute and have people remember it. Thanks!
And don’t underestimate the power of your idea. Making people understand this concept is a high priority task on the road towards climate solutions.
May 20, 2012 at 3:36 am
“He who knows not….and knows not he knows not…..he is a fool”. Confucius.
“Those are NOT American tanks behind me”……”Baghdad Bob”.
May 20, 2012 at 12:45 pm
I am grateful for the explanation of what the D-K effect is. I have heard it mentioned often; but have never bothered to investigate it because I felt that those who refer to it were just trying to make me feel intellectually inferior to them. However, I am generally very self-critical and tend to think very poorly of myself, which would appear to indicate that I am amongst the most intelligent and self-aware. This is excellent news.
As for people being insufficiently aware of their inability to be self-critical; I have always put this down to:
–1. the cynical rejection of all authority figures and the fallacious assumption that all opinions are equally valid (i.e. the marketplace of ideas) and/or
–2. a preference for believing in a conspiracy theory that absolves us all as individuals of any responsibility for the consequences of our collective failure to admit that, as Herman E Daly put it so well, we are all treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.
May 20, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Martin – Michael Mann believes in such a conspiracy, in his case to absolve himself of any responsibility for the consequences of his and his colleagues’ collective failure to bring about any meaningful action regarding policymaking.
Another D-K victim, then!
May 20, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Oh, the irony.
May 20, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Would be interesting to find out how many visitors of this site really think that, if there were no “skeptics”, the world would have agreed a mitigation plan years ago already.
If anybody does, I would like to know what that plan’s details would have been.
May 20, 2012 at 10:18 pm
At least in the USA, the cap and trade law a few years ago would have likely passed. Before that, though, who knows what form of legislation would have passed in an alternative universe. Also, businesses and people would likely be contributing more in certain ways.
That’s all I got, but the past is the past.
May 21, 2012 at 7:17 am
otter17 – I said, “the world” 😎
May 21, 2012 at 9:14 am
Yeah, I know you made mention of the world. As far as the world goes, who knows? I can only guess there. I would presume each country would have tailored their own method to meet international treaty. USA being a hindrance to international treaty hasn’t helped for sure.
May 21, 2012 at 3:25 pm
As Peter has already pointed out last month, Cap and Trade was espoused by Republicans long before the party morphed into the current fringe-controlled collective of misanthropic hypocrites.
I know Martin Lack sees real problems with Cap and Trade and prefers the Fee and Dividend plan that Hansen proposes but there were significant reductions made in sulfur dioxide emissions with Cap and Trade ( then called Emissions Trading )
May 20, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Another nice inversion of reality. Blaming our predicament on the people who have done the most to illustrate the scale of the problem we face. I was going to say you couldn’t make this stuff up; but you just did.
May 20, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Are you denying that Michael Mann is convinced about a “well-oiled denialist” conspiracy?
May 21, 2012 at 6:27 pm
As I have said to you many times, Maurizio, the conspiracy Mann cites is a well-documented fact; whereas the scientific conspiracy to foist climate change alarmism on a credulous world is a complete fantasy.
May 21, 2012 at 11:09 pm
And, it isn’t a conspiracy. Many are acting independently of one another.
May 20, 2012 at 10:24 pm
When did he absolve himself of any responsibility?
May 20, 2012 at 1:16 pm
The lemon juice thing reminds me of the Chemtrail “vinegar people”.
May 20, 2012 at 3:14 pm
this rather sums up the adam smith instiitute very well, who formulated a policy of privatising the pavements..using profit zones..
May 20, 2012 at 9:47 pm
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias [misinterpretation] in which unskilled individuals [idiots] suffer from illusory [imaginary] superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average [bloated egos]. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive [that part of your brain that isn’t really you, but helps you decide things] inability of the unskilled [nice word for idiot again] to recognize their mistakes.
Actual competence [knowing what the hell they are talking about] may weaken self-confidence [if they actually knew more about something they might realize they were stupid], as competent individuals [smart people] may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding [smart people assume other people are not complete morons, until they have proof otherwise]. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others”
http://www.witwgara.tk/2012/05/they-have-name-for-that-dunningkruger.html
July 31, 2012 at 11:08 pm
[…] (1) distrusting all external authority and (2) invoking the fallacious marketplace of ideas (i.e. the Dunning-Kruger effect), large numbers of people continue to prefer to believe that the majority of relevantly-qualified, […]