Foolish Behaviour and the Dunning-Kruger Bias.

[Xue Sheng]

That can’t be right.

Of course it's right, I found it on the internet....and the internet never lies

 

[Argus]

The last 3 years have dramatically highlighted that, like entropy, stupidity appears to be increasing in the universe. A unique set of medical and political situations have exposed the sheer depth of foolish ideas that some people hold. It’s been quite bewildering. Then I ran across a couple of articles about the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities to think things through to a reasonable conclusion. This was a light-bulb moment for me, because it explained what we witness and can only call stupidity. It seems to invade all aspects of life: the awful manager who thinks they’re wonderful (David Brent) but who’s subordinates can clearly see are totally incompetent. The army general who orders his men to fight against overwhelming odds and wipes them all out. The business person who thinks they can succeed in their failing business if only others would ‘give them a break‘. The incompetent leader of a country, the decision to not protect themselves and save others etc…it all makes sense how this happens….The Dunning-Kruger effect.

The key is to recognise ones own limits and act within them. For example, I was a good academic neuroscientist and have sound, evidence-led opinions on science. But don’t ask me about financial investments, or sporting competitions or the governments latest ideas on corporate taxation because I know my limits.

The Dunning Kruger effect is real, and very observable recently.

But, I want to emphasize a number of things:

1) Expertise does not have any correlation whatsoever (surprisingly) to being right, or having good judgement. Humility does.
2) Beware information bubbles and "artificial realities." Social media has played a huge role in cultivating echo chambers where we only see and hear things that reinforce our existing biases and beliefs, and we all fall prey to this. This is extremely radicalizing, and leads us to construct an overly simplified and misrepresentative perception of opposing views, stripped of nuance and context. The people who you would accuse of falling victim to the Dunning Kruger effect may well have good basis for their views, and it's simply you who are missing the nuance. So many people attempt to validate their beliefs by finding the most ridiculous example of an opposing view, and refuting it, rather than taking the time to search for, and familiarize themself with the most intelligent arguments and individuals on the other side of the isle. They then proceed to disregard anyone who says or advocates Y, simply because they found many examples of poor arguments for Y.
Honestly, I could list dozens more logical fallacies that the vast majority of people on BOTH sides of the isle are guilty of here.
3) Understand that we are in a highly politicized environment, and politics is the antithesis of intellectual honesty and sense making. Distrust all rhetoric and be doubly skeptical of anything you are inclined to believe. And, frankly, give very little weight to "authority" and "authoritative" sources that are in any way political in nature. Take conflicts of interest seriously, apply critical thinking relentlessly, and refuse to have an opinion on the vast majority of information. This is where you need to constantly be applying tools such as Occam's Razor, and familiarizing yourself with a broad array of subjects and reasoning if you want to have any hope of having an accurate perception of the world.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that intellectually honest amateurs applying critical thinking and logical reasoning, towards the end of really and truly getting at an objective understanding of things, can and most often do produce more factual and accurate takes on things than any politically motivated individual or institution. One such example that I'd direct you towards is the "less wrong" community. Applying these same methods, I have also, myself, been extremely accurate in my forecasts / probability / believe-ability weighting of information regarding Economics, and the Pandemic (which I won't get into the details of, because these are hot political subjects, but...). I don't need to be an expert in these fields, but I do need to know the limits of my knowledge and what I can and can't judge. This is where humility comes in. Humility, and a keen awareness of what you know, what you don't know, and what you don't know you don't know, can actually empower you to form more accurate takes on a subject than many experts in the field, even if that take is simply "I don't know" or "we can't know, but here are the possibilities as I understand them"

Humility is the key. And that does NOT mean "staying in your lane." Complex issues within complex systems should be examined by people with diverse view points, experience, and expertise in as broad a manner, and from as many perspectives as possible. Humility simply means being aware of what you can and can't know, and what you do and don't know, and from there, thinking in terms of probabilities, possibilities, and believe-ability weighting information. Intellectual honesty and a true desire to understand things objectively, and the humility necessary to do that, are far more valuable than any domain specific expertise, though you must make yourself knowledgeable to the degree that your analysis goes (ie, I can come up with a very accurate analysis on any given issue as long as I take care not to get in over my head, and insist on taking a neutral stance on anything that you don't have the ability to analyze in sufficient depth or detail to make a given conclusion. This is something you can get very good at, even if it is a skill that escapes many people.)