by VorJack
Reader Rellas Natas on the forum directs us to a fascinating interview with David Dunning, co-author of the Dunning-Kruger effect: the idea that a person may be too ignorant to know how ignorant they are.
According to Dunning, the epiphany came to him when he was reading an unusually ridiculous “dumb crook” story in which the bank robber, McArthur Wheeler, had managed to convince himself that covering his face with lemon juice would prevent the security cameras from getting an image of his face.
If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.
Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence. Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research. Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999.
Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”
Dunning goes on to consider the evolution of the species and points out the limitations of being at the top of the food chain:
People will often make the case, “We can’t be that stupid, or we would have been evolutionarily wiped out as a species a long time ago.” I don’t agree. I find myself saying, “Well, no. Gee, all you need to do is be far enough along to be able to get three square meals or to solve the calorie problem long enough so that you can reproduce. And then, that’s it. You don’t need a lot of smarts. You don’t have to do tensor calculus. You don’t have to do quantum physics to be able to survive to the point where you can reproduce.” One could argue that evolution suggests we’re not idiots, but I would say, “Well, no. Evolution just makes sure we’re not blithering idiots. But, we could be idiots in a lot of different ways and still make it through the day.”
The interview is at the blog The Opinionator.
Somewhat reminds me of the Douglas Adam’s fictional company, Sirius Cybernetics where the superficial design flaws hide the major design flaws.
Boy, I’m glad I’m not that stupid!
*blink blink*
So… you can’t cure stupid.
Actually, as the Dunning/Kruger study itself points out:
“Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.”
So while you might not be able to “cure” stupid, you can at least make stupid somewhat more self-aware– which is the major hurdle. This in and of itself would be a massive improvement over “unaware” stupid.
As a blue collar guy for most of my working life, who has operated dangerous heavy machinery and power tools, worked in close proximity to large, powerful domesticated animals, and has therefore constantly had to think not only for myself but at the same time watch out for the many various ways the occasional stupid co-worker of mine was constantly trying to kill himself and me along with him, I can attest to the fact that in such situations any improvement in stupid– no matter how incremental– is greatly to be desired.
So ignorance really is bliss!
When I was younger, I majored in stupid.
Don´t worry, so did almost everyone else.
The second block quote reminds me of this xkcd comic:
http://xkcd.com/674/
The text if you hold the mouse over the picture is:
On one hand, every single one of my ancestors going back billions of years has managed to figured it out. On the other hand, that’s the mother of all sampling biases.
that might explain Glenn Beck
It explains people at both ends of the political extreme tbh. Once knew a guy who came out with this little beauty:
“If I had my way, I would take every racist in the world, line them up and shoot them!”
My reply of:
“Hmmm. So…. Taking a group of people and killing them all because of their beliefs… Remind you of anybody from history?”
Didn’t go down well.
I’ll bet
Hey! Hold my beer and watch this!
VorJack – be careful not to use the words “stupid” and “ignorant” interchangably. Your sentence “the idea that a person may be too ignorant to know how ignorant they are” is not the same as “the idea that a person may be too stupid to know how stupid they are.” Maybe “the idea that a person may be ignorant of how stupid he is” may be the best way to describe what the paper was getting at.
As skeptics and atheists, we cannot lump “ignorance” and “stupidity” together, because “ignorance” is often simply a lack of knowledge in a certain area. I may be a “smart” person (i.e. “not stupid”), but I am woefully ignorant in nearly every field of knowledge and science that I have not specifically studied, and there is nothing wrong with that. Stupidity arises when a person lacks the critical thinking skills to make good or rational decisions and conclusions, even when they are aware of certain knowledge (i.e. not necessarily ignorant).
McArthur Wheeler, had managed to convince himself that covering his face with lemon juice would prevent the security cameras from getting an image of his face.
That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. (And I bet you he had 5 kids. “Idiocracy” here we come!)
Sh*t, you mean the lemon juice trick doesn’t work. I better get the hell out before the cops show up.
Idiot. Everyone knows it´s lime juice.
It only works if you put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up.
@ Joe L:
Good point.
LoL, it’s sort of the reverse of Socrates being the wisest man because he alone knew that he knew nothing.
Interesting. A friend’s daughter with Downs syndrome has been diagnosed with depression “due to her awareness of and frustration with her shortcomings.” I’ve also had experiences with two people in the early phases of Alzheimers who were aware that they had lost cognitive ability and were quite distraught. However, as the disease progressed their emotions were also affected, with one person becoming childishly happy, the other cranky all the time. I wonder if self-assessment is a separate type of intelligence.
nazani14,
This is actually the first part of a five part series being published in the New York Times this week. Today, the focus was on the work of a ground-breaking neuroscientist named V. S. Ramachandran. I think you’ll find that the questions you raise in your comment are dealt with in today’s installment. You should check it out.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-4/
“We are overshadowed by a nimbus of ideas. There is our physical reality and then there is our conception of ourselves, our conception of self — one that is as powerful as, perhaps even more powerful than, the physical reality we inhabit. A version of self that can survive even the greatest bodily tragedies. We are creatures of our beliefs. This is at the heart of Ramachandran’s ideas about anosognosia — that the preservation of our fantasy selves demands that we often must deny our physical reality. Self-deception is not enough. Something stronger is needed. Confabulation triumphs over organic disease. The hemiplegiac’s anosognosia is a stark example, but we all engage in the same basic process. But what are we to make of this? Is the glass half-full or half-empty? For Dunning, anosognosia masks our incompetence; for Ramachandran, it makes existence palatable, perhaps even possible.”
The largest part in any learning experience is to find out what is that you don’t know.
One you know what you don’t know, you can study and work on it.
After realizing that you don’t know something, you will usually either acknowledge your ignorance and avoid making uninformed decisions upon it or actively work to remedy to your ignorance.
Well, duh!
Haven’t you noticed this?
Have you ever been embarrassed at how stupid you’d been? Have you noticed others occasionally being embarrassed about how stupid they’d been? Haven’t you noticed people who should be embarrassed not being so?
If you feel stupid, maybe you have enough sense and self-awareness to have that capacity. Maybe you don’t. Haven’t you noticed the lack of that? The increase in being too stupid to know you’re stupid? Keeeerist! It’s been like sand in my clothing for about 20 years.