The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Image by Dave Simonds


The "Dunning-Kruger Effect"

-- Fact or Science Fiction?

They're not exactly "Dewey, Cheetham and Howe" (Fictional Attorneys at Law) but have certainly brought that team to mind.

They double-handedly inspired this CBC headline: How ignorance makes us cocky

It's actually a year-old CBC article, but it was updated on May 1/20, apparently to render it relevant to the ongoing Covid insanity.  It's about a couple of university research artists who've worked hard at making two names for themselves and finally succeeded. They're in the bigtime now!  Joined at the hip, they are definitely cocky about their "effect".

• The Dunning-Kruger Effect is described as a cognitive quirk in which people with the least amount of knowledge or skill in a given field are as confident as those with the most expertise.
• Their research has also found that the phenomenon results more from misinformation and misbelief rather than being uninformed.

Well, call me Dunning-Kruger-Stupid, but that sentence makes no sentence. I think there should be a "from" before the words "being uninformed".  But maybe I'm over-confident as was, obviously, my very strict English teacher.

My, my; so much babble and repetition of the names "Dunning-Kruger" - did you get that?

Look at Dunning's photo. Does he look a bit "cocky" to you?  Methinks he'd fail more than a few of his own tests.

It seems a bit dumb to call it "the Dunning-Kruger Effect" since the phrase suggests it's these two guys creating the effect.  Could it be they really are?  Through the power of suggestion, perhaps?

Look at the graph they created. I mean, if they could create a graph that looks like a skipping rope with a tall person at one end and a short person at the other end, then by golly, they must be brilliant.

Al Gore could take lessons from those guys.

They certainly get high marks for their ultra confidence, and they do love the sound of their own names conjoined. Dunning-Kruger, Dunning-Kruger, DUNNING-KRUGER.  Listen up, everybody; look at us! We're not just having an effect; we ARE an effect.

But what is the real point being sidled up to here?

​Ah, yes ... supporting "science"; specifically vaccines. Now why would they be doing that at this particular point in time?

Can't help wondering where they get their funding?  Neither can I.
​

• "About a third of Americans, it's been shown, believe they know as much about vaccines and vaccination as experts and scientists. And it turns out that people who claim equal knowledge [to experts and scientists] tend to do the worst on actual tests of actual knowledge," Dunning said.

Given their all-too apparent prejudice in favour of vaccines, how can anyone be sure their test is scientifically valid?

Note the weasel words: "About"; "tend".  Sounds like guesswork to me.

By whom has it been shown that "About" a third of Americans "believe they know as much about vaccines and vaccination" as "experts" and "scientists" ... ?  Well, by the great Dunning-Kruger duo, of course, once they've had their "effect".

I bet those guys can tap-dance too.

Could it be that D-K are prime examples of their own theory?  I mean, doesn't it "take one to know one"?

You can't fool me, D-K.  I personally know little about vaccines, never having had one, but I do know that a lot of money has been paid out to Americans who formerly trusted science right up until their child was damaged by a vaccine.

That's pretty much all anyone needs to know to be rendered cautious.

Take Bill Gates, for example (please, God, take him).  He doesn't know everything that's in vaccines, and he's currently not hurting anybody except Black African kids. So that's okay, eh?

It's not surprising that the U.S. now wants to end vaccine injury compensation payments.  Are they anticipating Covid vaccine injuries? If so, and if the vaccine is made mandatory for all, that's way too much money for injury compensation.

Canada has never given a hoot about whether or not a person has been injured by a vaccine. 

But, like the Effect duo, the gummint (adverse effects following immunization) does turn out a lovely graph on the subject (Jan 1 - June 30 - 2019). *See the graph at the bottom of this page. Be sure to read what it says under "other events".

So there's that and the fact that too many "experts" have been found to be politically motivated. Universities are hotbeds of cut-throat politics.

Jordan Peterson:  It is nothing less than a dire day when the proud revelation of vices of deadly and multifarious seriousness serve to substitute for announcements of genuine and valuable achievement, but that is where we are at—make no mistake about it.

"Publish or perish" makes idiots of even the most well-meaning. But I smell a couple of inveterate political lab rats of the show-biz genre.

If D-K are not heavily invested in the Corona bonanza, i.e., vaccine stocks, they maybe should think seriously about that instead of about what others think of them and their amazing "everybody else but us and the vaccine makers is stupid" act.

They should at least test Bill Gates with their theory. If he's not way too full of himself, considering the damage he's contemplating, then nobody is, and the D-K team (ooh, sounds like "decay team") needs to find another attention-getting hobby.

I always like to take a look at the comments on CBC tripe because they often make me smile, and one needs a reason to smile in this age of "expert" demoralization.

John Fairview:
 Interesting article, reminds me of a quote
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” Wernher von Braun

Also reminds me of something my father used to say:
"I've only been wrong once in my life; it was one time when I thought I was wrong."

Image: from Gov't of Canada website: stats on vaccine injury.

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