Dunning-Kruger Effect: Stupid People Don't Know They're Stupid

Freddy Krueger

Convinced he knows everything worth knowing.

McArthur Wheeler: Patron Saint Of American "Conservatism"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/01/mcarthur-wheeler-patron-saint-of.html

Original study

The phenomenon was first tested in a series of experiments during 1999 by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of the department of psychology at Cornell University.^[1][2]The study was inspired by the case of McArthur Wheeler, a man who robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras.^[3] The authors noted that earlier studies suggested that ignorance of standards of performance lies behind a great deal of incorrect self-assessment of competence. This pattern was seen in studies of skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing games such as chess or tennis.

Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:^[4]

• fail to recognize their own lack of skill
• fail to recognize genuine skill in others
• fail to recognize the extent of their inadequacy
• recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill, after they are exposed to training for that skill

Dunning has since drawn an analogy – "the anosognosia of everyday life"^[5][6] – with a condition in which a person who experiences a physical disability because of brain injury seems unaware of, or denies the existence of, the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as blindness or paralysis: "If you're incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.… [T]he skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."^[5]

American Conservatives And Aggressive Ignorance

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/american-conservatives-and-aggressive.html

"Mediocre Philosophy Sells: It Makes The Half Literate Feel Smart"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/05/reprise-mediocre-philosophy-sells-it.html

Alan: American conservatives are not just ignorant but aggressively ignorant.

Proudly ignorant.

Boastfully ignorant. 

Evangelically ignorant.

If God is conceived as Truth, the permanent posture of American conservatives is squatting over "his" face, shitting in his mouth, shouting "Down Truth! Down!"

"The Death Of Epistemolgy"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-polls-skewed-death-of-epistemology.html