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I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

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Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#31

Post by photochemsyn »

Any discussion of statistics-based reasoning should include the concept of systematic bias, and that's not mentioned in this article at all. An example of systematic bias is that of an accurate but miscalibrated thermometer, where the spread of measurements at fixed temperature is small, but all measurements are off by some large factor.

Now with D-K the proposed problem is statistical autocorrelation, not systematic bias, due to lack of independence, as here:

> "Subtracting y – x seems fine, until we realize that we’re supposed to interpret this difference as a function of the horizontal axis. But the horizontal axis plots test score x. So we are (implicitly) asked to compare y – x to x"

Regardless, it's fairly obvious that D-K enthusiasts are of the opinion that a small group of expert technocrats should be trusted with all the important decisions, as the bulk of humanity doesn't know what's good for it. This is a fairly paternalistic and condescending notion (rather on full display during the Covid pandemic as well). Backing up this opinion with 'scientific studies' is the name of the game, right?

It does vaguely remind me of the whole Bell Curve controversy of years past... in that case, systematic bias was more of an issue:

> "The last time I checked, both the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland were white. And yet the Catholics, with their legacy of discrimination, grade out about 15 points lower on I.Q. tests. There are many similar examples."

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/26/opinion/in-america-throwi...

I am reminded of something my very accomplished PI (in the field of earth system science) confided privately to me once... "Purely statistical arguments," she said, "are mostly bullshit..."

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#32

Post by ncmncm »

aaaronic wrote: post #7

It seems like the people who want to disprove Dunning-Kruger are falling victim to it. I honestly think people take it way too seriously and apply it too generally. Quantifying "good" is hard if you don't know much about the field you're quantifying. Getting deep into a particular field is humbling -- Tetris seems relatively simple, but there are people who could fill a book with things _I_ don't know about it, despi…

"Most citations of D-K are examples of it."

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#34

Post by robocat »

javajosh wrote: post #29
galaxyLogic wrote: post #3

I think Dunning Krueger makes intuitive sense. When you become skilled in your field you learn from other people in your field, and your assessment of yourself is based on your relation to the skills of those other people. But if you know very little about something, you have no reference point to evaluate yourself against. When you learn something you also learn what are some of the mistakes you can make. You evalua…

>I think Dunning Krueger makes intuitive sense. If human cultures can be characterized as default arrogant or default humble then it stands to reason that arrogant cultures will have a DK effect, and in humble cultures you won't.

I think you have the common misconception about the DK effect, which is incorrectly summarised as "unskilled and unaware".

There is also the other end of the scale where "skilled and unaware" occurs: people under-assessing their skill (presumed that this is due to judging that most people also have similarly high skill levels).

I think your two "cultures" would shift the self-assessment line up or down on the graph (constant), but not affect the slope very much (multiplier). The line shape or line slope must change somewhat since values are limited (between 0 and 100).

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#35

Post by sjmm1989 »

parentheses wrote: post #30

What’s more interesting to me is what all the buzz over DK tells me. We are asymmetrically skeptical. In the same way as intelligent people doubt their own performance, they rightly doubt others’ performance. Maybe too much.

It's called a giant fucking lack of self awareness, with a good helping of societally instilled narcissism on the worst side of it all, and then add in imposter syndrome, self righteousness and gaslighting. The best side of it all basically is all of these things, but with a tight leash on things and sans the gaslighting. There might be better, but those people are probably off doing their own thing minding their own business; etc.

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#37

Post by nosefrog »

I think the main point of this post is correct -- just because you can find the effect in random noise, doesn't mean it's not real phenomenon that happens in real life. But it's missing a nuance there: if an effect can be replicated with random noise, then it's not a psychological effect (e.g. something that you would explain as a human bias), but a statistical effect. E.g. regression towards the mean is a real effect, but it's a statistical effect, not a psychological effect.

And that's the point the original article was trying to make ("The reason turns out to be embarrassingly simple: the Dunning-Kruger effect has nothing to do with human psychology. It is a statistical artifact — a stunning example of autocorrelation."), though that point does lost a bit as it goes on.

I think this article gives a better summary of how the Dunning-Kruger effect probably isn't a psychological effect: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-...

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#38

Post by jasonhansel »

parentheses wrote: post #30

What’s more interesting to me is what all the buzz over DK tells me. We are asymmetrically skeptical. In the same way as intelligent people doubt their own performance, they rightly doubt others’ performance. Maybe too much.

I think that most people who talk a lot about DK believe that they are the experts in one field or another.

It serves mostly as a way of reassuring themselves of their own superiority. The message (for them) basically amounts to "other people's claim to knowledge is just further proof that they don't know anything."

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#39

Post by twobitshifter »

blamestross wrote: post #10

Possibility 3 backed up by all the same data: The less you know, the more random your guess at your own knowledge is. The actual value is low and less than zero isn't an option, so this drags the average up consistently. The more you know, the more accurate your guess of your knowledge is. Especially as you hit the limits of the test, this noise can only drag the average down, but less dramatically than the other cas…

I had the same thought while reading this. The test has a limited range of values, you can only estimate your score within that range, no higher or lower. Those at the top and bottom will naturally estimate into the body of the range since a lower or higher estimate is not possible. However, I’m not sure this explains the results entirely, and I’d like to see a statistician take this further.

Re: I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

#40

Post by robocat »

aaaronic wrote: post #7

It seems like the people who want to disprove Dunning-Kruger are falling victim to it. I honestly think people take it way too seriously and apply it too generally. Quantifying "good" is hard if you don't know much about the field you're quantifying. Getting deep into a particular field is humbling -- Tetris seems relatively simple, but there are people who could fill a book with things _I_ don't know about it, despi…

Or perhaps your comment is the relatively rare meta-meta-DK effect.
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