Dunning & Kruger overestimated their own competences.

[PierreV]

Debunking the Dunning-Kruger effect – the least skilled people know how much they don’t know, but everyone thinks they are better than average

The idea that the least skilled are the most unaware of their incompetency is pervasive in science and pop culture. But a new analysis of the data shows that the Dunning-Kruger effect may not be true.

theconversation.com

 

[Fregly]

Was the DK effect based only on that one study? Also there was another where depressive people estimated more accurately. Perhaps that one is a bit soft too. I know these sociological type studies tend not to be reproducable, something like 80%, yet often get imbedded in the culture in how we think about things.

 

[fpitas]

Interesting. Although my observation is that around here, the Dunning-Kruger accusation is usually made for some guy that is obviously trolling. To be completely fair, a lot of the trolls get caught from their ignorance.

 

[PierreV]

Was the DK effect based only on that one study? Also there was another where depressive people estimated more accurately. Perhaps that one is a bit soft too. I know these sociological type studies tend not to be reproducable, something like 80%, yet often get imbedded in the culture in how we think about things.

I can't say that I have conducted an extensive literature review - but I think this is one of those ideas people loved and ran away with without looking back.

 

[sarumbear]

Debunking the Dunning-Kruger effect – the least skilled people know how much they don’t know, but everyone thinks they are better than average

The idea that the least skilled are the most unaware of their incompetency is pervasive in science and pop culture. But a new analysis of the data shows that the Dunning-Kruger effect may not be true.

theconversation.com

The Dunning and Kruger experiment did find a real effect – most people think they are better than average.

That, I think is proven many, many times on ASR forums.

 

[Digby]

Sorry @Jim Taylor, your post is a little, uh...abstract? Do you mean hard vs soft science? Are you saying soft science has little (no?) value....I'm not sure of your meaning.

 

[PierreV]

That, I think is proven many, many times on ASR forums.

This forum is surely better than the average forum in that respect.

 

[fpitas]

This forum is surely better than the average forum in that respect.

Yes. If you say something outre here, you get questioned at least. On other forums you become a noted expert if you say ridiculous things.

 

[fpitas]

I'll point out that the thread title may be correct, but it's not the Dunning-Kruger effect since that was their area of expertise.

/I'll let myself out.

 

[Blumlein 88]

An observation:
There is not "a culture" or "one culture". There are, at a minimum, two cultures. One is, for lack of a better word, abstract. The other is, also for lack of a better word, concrete. As is common with many things in life, the two do not commonly mix. Birds of a feather flock together, and all that.

Dunning-Kruger derives from the abstract. It has been adopted by the popular abstract culture because it serves the purposes and furthers the interests of the abstract culture.

Abstractions don't feed me. They don't keep me warm in winter, nor do they suture my wounds.

Jim

Interesting book by C.R. Hallpike.
How we got here: from bows and arrows to the space age.

Follows how societies were structured over the last few millennia. By the time societies had a ruling class, philosopher/religious class, warrior class, farming class, and everyone else there was a near total disconnect between abstraction and physical reality. There were various incredible achievements of abstract logic and some failures. The philosophers/religious priests for a long, long time had the idea the more abstract a concept and the logic the closer to perfection it was. They didn't mix at all with craftsmen people who made things. Many of them had some considerable technical knowledge without any theory.

By the time Galileo came along he knew the power of abstract hypothesis and theory as well as that it sometimes was wrong. He put it together with the idea of using physical reality to test abstract theory and letting results guide what was true vs just abstraction. He would work with craftsmen to create things needed for his experiments. This idea of testing theory with reality started a rapid increase in scientific knowledge. Doing the experiments and interacting with people who made the apparatus let abstract theory start to trickle into how to make things, how to figure out what to make. After it was going, the two supercharged each other resulting in an explosion of science and the industrial revolution.

One of the points in the book is that enough technical ability and enough abstraction logic and reasoning was available to have started this centuries sooner than it happened if not maybe even a millennia or more. The two being so separated is what had to change for this to happen.

 

[egellings]

Was the DK effect based only on that one study? Also there was another where depressive people estimated more accurately. Perhaps that one is a bit soft too. I know these sociological type studies tend not to be reproducable, something like 80%, yet often get imbedded in the culture in how we think about things.

I think that so long as it's humans getting studied, nothing will repeat well.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I might be wrong, but I believe that there is a large minority of the populations of advanced countries wherein the two are still separated ...... at least separated in attitude. You can sometimes see a jealous, defensive divide.

Jim

Maybe. I think possibly there is a shift back toward more of the division than there has been for a couple hundred years.

 

[sam_adams]

"The original paper by Dunning and Kruger starts with the quote: “It is one of the essential features of incompetence that the person so inflicted is incapable of knowing that they are incompetent.” This idea has spread far and wide through both scientific literature and pop culture alike. But according to the work of my colleagues and me, the reality is that very few people are truly unskilled and unaware."

The author has obviously never worked in Information Technology . . .

 

[JSmith]

JSmith