The Dunning-Kruger Effect

                                             

                   "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”

                                                                                                                      ~Darwin

 “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

 Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University conclude, "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others".

 Reasoning errors aside, we know that people often acquire their beliefs about the world for reasons that are more emotional and social rather than intellectual discernment. Wishful thinking, self-serving bias, in-group loyalties, and self-deception can lead to enormous departures from the norm of rationality.

Most beliefs are evaluated against a background of other beliefs and often in the context of an ideology that a person shares with others. Consequently, people are rarely as open to revising their views as reason would seem to dictate.

On this front, the internet has simultaneously enabled two opposing influences on belief…On one hand it has reduced intellectual isolation by making it more difficult for people to remain ignorant of the diversity of opinions on any given subject. But, it has allowed bad ideals to multiply… as anyone with a computer and too much time on his hands can broadcast his misguided beliefs and often enough find an audience.   

So while knowledge is increasingly open-source, ignorance is too (The irony of knowledge).

It is also true that the less competent a person is in a given domain, the more he will tend to overestimate his abilities. This often produces an ugly fusion of confidence and ignorance that is very difficult to correct for. 

Conversely, those who are more knowledgeable about a subject tend to be acutely aware of the greater expertise of others. This creates a rather disjointed dialogue in public discourse…one that is generally on display whenever an exercise physiologist speaks with appropriate cautiousness about controversies in his field, or about the limits of his own understanding…while his opponents (TV fitness experts, medical weight loss experts, internet weight loss gurus, and celebrities who have lost weight) will often make wildly unjustified assertions about which diet plan or exercise program can be inserted into the space provided.

Thus… one often finds people with no scientific nutritional training speaking with apparent certainty about the nutritional implications of specific diets and weight loss products.

So, the question becomes…  “What should I believe, and why should I believe it?”

Believe a proposition because it is well supported by theory and evidence…believe it because it has been experimentally verified…believe it because a generation of smart people have tried their best to falsify it and failed…believe it because it is true.

This is the normal cognition as well as the basis of any scientific mission statement. As far as our understanding of nutrition is concerned…there are no “true” nutritional facts without scientific verification.

 

“We must pursue knowledge without any interference of our emotions. Only then will true knowledge manifest itself in reality”.

                                                                        What the bleep do we know?