Live data from Hacker News

The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

mcgill.ca

31–40 of 75 posts

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#31

In my experience Dunning-Kruger 100% is there but in the following form: "knowledgeable people doubt, and less people know they are more confident." It is even amazing sometimes, how confidently people without any knowledge talk and give opinion about subjects that need high level of knowledge, just to even begin to ponder about it. And again, it can be my bias.

I don't know why your response got down voted. Maybe some rather specific people got their panties in a twist.

Either way, what you said is something Bertrand Russel (certainly not best known for being a dumb man) once worded like this:

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

.. and just for good measure, here is another one of his quotes, which is hardly well know to those who would probably be better off if they did:

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them."

In summary: ignorant people do appear to often be more confident than they deserve to be. Whether that is actually because they are truly unaware of their ignorance, that could certainly be a good question to ask oneself. For there are plenty who deliberately abuse both faked ignorance and confidence just to bamboozle and deceive others.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#32
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I know who fall into this category construct an elaborate world view where they are the constant victim of all the idiots and jerks of the world. Everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault, not their own ignorance and bad choices.

So half of reddit?

You're grossly underestimating

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#33
post #8

Personally speaking, it just struck me as odd that - outside of some rare exceptions - that someone could be so dumb that he'd actually be ignorant of his ineptitude. This is different than misrepresenting your ability. Lots of people do that for lots of reasons, but for someone to be so sheerly ignorant as is often given in the case examples struck me as someone who will sooner rather than later learn painful lesson…

[deleted]

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#34
post #8

Personally speaking, it just struck me as odd that - outside of some rare exceptions - that someone could be so dumb that he'd actually be ignorant of his ineptitude. This is different than misrepresenting your ability. Lots of people do that for lots of reasons, but for someone to be so sheerly ignorant as is often given in the case examples struck me as someone who will sooner rather than later learn painful lesson…

It's really not uncommon. You can go a long time before you have an accurate self-assessment forced on you. https://youtu.be/jq1_2P6YWtA?t=259 is good, a typically honest reflection from Anthony Stauffer, someone who is no idiot.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#35
> instead showed that both experts and novices underestimate and overestimate their skills with the same frequency. “It’s just that experts do that over a narrower range,” he wrote to me.

This makes sense, in the narrow definition they use for the effect, that is students estimating their exam score.

It doesn’t necessarily disprove other interpretations that people are casually using, such as imposter syndrome, which are related but pedantically not the same effect.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#36
post #24

Wait a sec’. The author admits the effect has been confirmed by others, then claims it’s probably not real because of a pair of studies (both from the same team) that even the authors admit support at least part of the Dunning-Kruger hypothesis (“It’s just that experts do that over a narrower range”). His confirmation is a couple of ad hoc unpublishable investigations? It’s almost like he might be overestimating his…

Of course, an attack on Dunning Kruger demonstrating questionable competence to evaluate their work is delightfully meta.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#37
post #7

I can't go a week without seeing people mention Dunning-Kruger on Reddit. It's become such a pop-cultural zeitgeist term that it's lost any ties to the original study. It's frequently abused as a derogatory adjective to describe people while claiming the superior argument, often without providing evidence. I don't know what to do about it, but its use by lay people bothers me. It's ironically Dunning-Kruger.

You can try to explain that the effect doesn't actually apply to any pointing out of the effect in someone's comment, maybe even cite the study.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#38
post #14

Does this article actually contains explanation of what was wrong with the original study? Maybe I don't know how to read with understanding, but to me this article makes only two points: 1. The effect was about all people, not just dumb people. 2. The same graph can be obtained "by random". Point 1. makes sense, but 2. is left unexplained. There is a lot of words, but no content. Almost as if GPT-3 was writing it :)…

On top of that, the graphs are only barely similar, and I would not call them the same. There is a clear difference in magnitude.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#39
post #14

Does this article actually contains explanation of what was wrong with the original study? Maybe I don't know how to read with understanding, but to me this article makes only two points: 1. The effect was about all people, not just dumb people. 2. The same graph can be obtained "by random". Point 1. makes sense, but 2. is left unexplained. There is a lot of words, but no content. Almost as if GPT-3 was writing it :)…

Exactly! Why does the author not tell us how the McKnight model works? This is the only substantial claim the author makes, yet the result is delivered in two measly sentences. I feel snookered.

The other paper by Ackermann also has a simulated graph, but I have yet to find the simulation model.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#40
post #14

Does this article actually contains explanation of what was wrong with the original study? Maybe I don't know how to read with understanding, but to me this article makes only two points: 1. The effect was about all people, not just dumb people. 2. The same graph can be obtained "by random". Point 1. makes sense, but 2. is left unexplained. There is a lot of words, but no content. Almost as if GPT-3 was writing it :)…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN