Do unskilled people actually underestimate their incompetence?

Blair Fix

Have you heard of the ‘Dunning-Kruger effect’? It’s the (apparent) tendency for unskilled people to overestimate their competence. Discovered in 1999 by psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning, the effect has since become famous. And you can see why. It’s the kind of idea that is too juicy to
<em>
 not
</em>
be true. Everyone ‘knows’ that idiots tend to be unaware of their own idiocy.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation

Björn Brembs

*[During my [flyfishing vacation last
year](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/comment-n862.html), pretty much
nothing was happening on this blog. Now that I've migrated the blog to
WordPress, I can actually schedule posts to appear when in fact I'm not
even at the computer. I'm using this functionality to re-blog a few
posts from the [archives](http://blogarchive.brembs.net) during the
month of august while I'm away. This post is from [June 24,
2010](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/comment-n626.html):]{style="font-size: 12px;"}  
*

What is it with non-scientists trying to go and save science from the
scientists? First, there's an English major at Scholarly Kitchen [trying
to tell us we should stick with a 400 year-old publishing
system](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/comment-n608.html){target="_self"}
despite more modern systems being widely and readily available. Then the
same blog sports a post
[wondering](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/comment-n625.html){target="_self"}
why their 400 year-old system they just touted doesn't seem to operate
as they imagine. So first these guys write a post to make sure every
scientist who reads it understands that they have no clue and then they
wonder why their clueless and hence baseless predictions don't
materialize? WTF?
![peeved.png](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/e107_images/emotes/yellow/peeved.png){decoding="async"}
I have an answer for The Scholarly Kitchen: because what you imagine how
science works has nothing to do with reality!

Then there is a [completely weird article in The Chronicle of Higher
Education](https://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Stop-the-Avalanche-of/65890/){target="_blank"
rel="external"} on how we need to get rid of all 'low-quality' science.
This piece, probably not unexpected by now, was written by English,
management, mechanical engineering and geography professors. The lone
medical researcher in the group does have a fair amount of PubMed
articles, but none of them are in one of the supposedly high-quality
journals mentioned in the article, so he basically just called himself
'low-quality' and thus should be struck from the public record,
![grin.png](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/e107_images/emotes/yellow/grin.png){decoding="async"}
Moreover, the articles where he was single author or one of two authors
are all on clinical practice and testing, raising the tentative
suspicion that medical practice is really his strong area of expertise,
rather than science. Which means that, again, none of these guys is
actually a scientist, i.e., working in physics, chemistry, biology and
regularly publishing scientific, experimental papers, which makes up the
bulk of the scientific literature. If they were, they would know that
there isn't such a thing as a 'low-quality' scientific discovery.
Scientific discoveries are like orgasms: you can't have any bad ones.
Now, I agree that there are badly conducted experiments, missing control
procedures and outright fraud. None of these examples are eliminated by
reducing scientific output, obviously. The authors make sure that this
is not what they mean, as they refer to 'low-quality' science as
journals or papers that aren't cited. Obviously, hi-profile fraud cases
are cited a lot. One reason for low citation counts is that very few
scientists understand the topic and/or are interested in it. Clearly,
this can change in a heartbeat and what was boring one day can be all
the rage tomorrow. Only someone not steeped in scientific research would
not be aware of that. Not surprisingly, this article has received a
thorough smackdown in the comment section over there and in the
[blogosphere](https://scienceblogs.com/clock/2010/06/sexy_science_good_science_and.php){target="_blank"}.

And then finally, to cap it all off, [this completely inane
post](https://www.scientificblogging.com/science_20/open_access_and_good_citations_plos_factor){target="_blank"},
riddled with factual errors, ludicrous assumptions and outright slander.
The author characterizes himself as the person who trademarked the term
"Science 2.0". Moreover, in the comments, he gives it away: "I'm not a
researcher" (as if that wasn't already blatantly obvious from the post).
I wonder why he's even touching his keyboard such that it generates
these nonsensical sentences? This post contains about as much valuable
and accurate information as if a monkey had sat on the keyboard. By his
own admission, he has about as much competence in this topic as a
monkey's rear end. This guy could probably just go and give it a shot
trying out for the LA Lakers -- at least he couldn't be any less
qualified than for his chosen topic.

I'm a biologist. Do I go to engineers and tell them how to build
bridges? Do I try to play in the NBA? Do I tell BP to just put a lid on
it? Sheesh, why are so many people trying to outcompete each other to
exemplify the [Dunning-Kruger
effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect){target="_blank"}
these days? These guys are even more pathetic than Rupert Pupkin in [The
King of Comedy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085794/){target="_blank"}.
What's with this current slate of ignorant imbeciles trying to
grandstand as if they had any relevant competence whatsoever and address
an international group of hundreds of thousands of professionals with
the actual expertise and experience? Where do these guys get the idea
they have anything meaningful and worthwhile to contribute? What's
gotten into them?  A different [collusion of
delusion](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/comment-n539.html){target="_self"}?
![elated.png](http://blogarchive.brembs.net/e107_images/emotes/yellow/elated.png){decoding="async"}

[claimtoken-520f68e90ad03]{style="display:none"}


*During my flyfishing vacation last year, pretty much nothing was happening on this blog. Now that I’ve migrated the blog to WordPress, I can actually schedule posts to appear when in fact I’m not even at the computer. I’m using this functionality to re-blog a few posts from the archives during the month of august while I’m away. This post is from June 24, 2010: *  What is it with non-scientists trying to go and save science from the scientists?

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation

Scientific discoveries are like orgasms: you can’t have any bad ones