The Dunning-Kruger effect is a much loved idea by those who think they are smarter than average bears. Unfortunately it's probably just a statistical artifact:

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-kruger-effect-probably-not-real

in general, hindu eschatology resembles the big bang/crunch. the cycle of expansion from a single point only to collapse to another single point and another expansion. these cycles are billions of years apart. (also some idea - that's too fuzzy to recall in detail - about matter changing and slipping into an alternative dimension might be a model of the great beyond)

will use Russell Bertrand - although not a poet, have read poetry that echos this thought (not gonna search) almost verbatim - when he said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” this was pretty much summed up the Dunning-Kruger Effect. (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/355363-one-of-the-painful-things-about-our-time-is-that)

the other you noted. meditation is healthy. of note, Sufism tends to focus on intense focusing, in music and song...and some of the musicians are peachy keen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QRivHR0c28

and the poetry is beautiful (EX: Rumi). so religion has spawned some good things, too.

in short, religion is no more destructive than the person implementing it. do believe in ideas. whether it comes from a white cassock or lab coat. such is the freedom to keep a mind free.

or take it up w/René Descartes*. he seemed to be better at it than I.

*Descartes died when he was run over by a horse-drawn coach. This is where the saying "Don't put Descartes in front of the horse."

BTW: Earle song?

With all 24/7 news/ late night running Anti Trump programming I believe the Dunning Kruger effect is infecting you and your ilk.

The American system is stacked toward the wealthy.

He inherited 200 million in NYC condos in the early '80s. If he'd held on to them, they'd be worth an estimated 12 billion today. If he'd sold and put the money in indexed stocks, he'd be worth 10 billion today. By his own most generous estimate he's worth 8 billion today (and less biased estimates have him out of billionaire status entirely).

Trump filed for bankruptcy four (I think, might have been more) times, each time structuring his debt so the shareholders got screwed and he got away clean.

He's accepted hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sweetheart loans from Russian banks. Every American bank has him blacklisted.

He's screwed contractors, employees, and practically everyone he can for years.

He's stiffed debt collectors for decades.

He's paid no taxes for decades.

In spite of all those benefits, he's still managed to lose approximately 90% of the massive wealth he inherited. Yeah, brilliant person.

BTW, every time I hear about the Dunning Kruger effect, I think of you and all the other Trumpites, Bob. It's worth giving some critical thought, if you can manage it.

I hope nobody thinks that smart people are not susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect...

So the U.S. is basically a large scale experiment to test the Dunning-Kruger effect? Is that my takeaway from this?

What I find fascinating about the Dunning-Kruger Effect is that it implies that the root cause of an individual's stupidity (their lack of talent in a particular field) is due primarily to their refusal to acknowledge their own incompetence, rather than any particular lack of ability itself.

Which is to say: If one can not hear that they are singing out of tune, they do not see the need to correct their pitch in order to improve their singing. As far as they are concerned, they sound wonderful!

It's actually a pretty horrifying conclusion. ><

The Dunning Kruger effect relates to peoples inability to assess their competence at a task they are already doing.

You might correctly assume that you can't speak Japanese or perform surgery, but once you start learning either, you will almost certainly overestimate your own ability early on.

The other thing that's important to note is that it doesn't necessarily relate to stupidity but competence. Stupidity is inherent, competence is learned. As you become more competent with a skill, you are better able to accurately rate your own ability.

In other words, even smart people will tend to overestimate their abilities until they know better.

For example, I've been aware of this phenomenon for nearly a decade. I've never driven a race car. Intellectually, I know that I'm not the next Senna in disguise, but even then I will catch myself looking at F1 or even the muppets on Top Gear and thinking "I could do that".

@Trancecoach holding a doctorate doesn't make you capable of understanding the scientific literature. If you held a bachelor's degree in one of the three sciences you'd stand a lot better chance of being able to understand the literature than someone who had a doctorate in say Art History. I would actually refer back to the Dunning Kruger effect and suggest that holding an unrelated qualification might lead you to overestimate your abilities.

And for someone who says that they *are* capable of understanding the scientific literature (and therefore the scientific method and approach), you dismiss "scientific consensus" as not being "scientific evidence". I don't understand what you mean here, but i think that's because you don't understand what scientific proof is.

I think it's a fundamental mistake that you're making. Scientists propose theories. Those theories that most accurately describe the situation and are most rigourously investigated are the ones that are accepted as being the case, and when things are found that are not correct, adjustments are made to the theory or other theories are proposed. There is never ever, ever.... EVER.. absolute evidence of anything in the way in which you request it, and that's your fundamental error, and stems from you not understanding the scientific method.

We have a lot of scientific consensus about gravity, but we do not have "scientific evidence" in the way you describe it. The evidence is ALL of the science that is done, ALL of the experiments ALL of the conclusions, positive and negative, and the consensus of the scientific community is reached and refined based on that research and ongoing research. There is no one document anywhere that constitutes "proof" that gravity is how we think it is. Not even all of the documents do that. They merely indicate to us what is most likely to be happening according to all of the knowledge and ingenuity that we've built up over the years.

I don't appreciate the scatter gun method you've used by posting all those links. You said in your latest post here that people try to confuse the issue by redirecting your request for "evidence" - the type that doesn't exist - towards other issues that you deem contentious. Yet you have almost drowned me in what appears to be about 15 different links to pages that seem to show singular examples of individuals that deny climate change. (Again, there are so many, and so many quotes, and no actual specification of what you are disagreeing with me about, that i can't rightly assess any of them.)

My point here is twofold - 1) don't try to be confusing like you accuse your opponents of, i.e. throwing as many links as possible to extend the argument to other points and 2) if that isn't what you were doing, could you perhaps condense your 15 links and selected quotes into a smaller point; that point being what it is about my previous posts you disagreed with?

Here are my points for you, simplified:
1) Scientific consensus does not mean "THIS IS HOW THINGS ARE" - it means that, on balance, according to everything we know and the opinions of those that are in the know, this is how we think things are until we know better.
2) There is no such thing as "scientific evidence" in the way you use the term; the only absolute proof is the one Descartes spoke about; the only thing you can know for sure is that your consciousness exists.
3) It is very easy to be misled by articles such as the one you linked from "the libertarian republic" website. This is also true of the last link you recommended for my research; you used that book to support your opposition to my assertion that human-caused climate change is not a matter of debate in the scientific community. Yet the same author was involved in the Copenhagen Consensus which lists as 6th most worthy of investigation (for the benefit and future of mankind), i quote; "R&D to Increase Yield Enhancements, to decrease hunger, fight biodiversity destruction, and lessen the effects of climate change"

I think that out of courtesy you should select one link which backs up whatever it is that you wish to refute, because it's not a good use of my time to have to go through each individual link, find out what you disagree with me about, and then spend time looking into it.

So, we disagree on one of the following:
1) The scientific consensus is that human-caused climate change is real, and that consensus represents the best of our current understanding as a species.
2) "Proof" in the sense you use it doesn't exist, the correct term is scientific evidence. The more evidence and the more convincing it is, the more firm the belief in a theory.
3) The article you linked from the libertarian website was unfairly representing its argument in relation to the paper it was referring to.

Please let me know. Remember - nothing is "beyond scepticism" in your words. I am sceptical about everything, including gravity, which i have an incredible amount of evidence for. However i am still sceptical about our understanding of it - i am always looking for differences. That doesn't mean that our understanding isn't the best one we have, and we should use it for our own advantage and safety.

I also note that you seem loathe to have a proper discussion with me. Our discussion could have been either about the scientific method or about the article you linked, but to throw all these links at me makes me feel you're unwilling or incapable of challenging your own opinion based on evidence. You don't even refer to the assessments of the article that i offered; you immediately discarded the article from your argument and linked me to other people that may or may not be misrepresenting the argument.

@A-Winston @lantern53

Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

I'll simplify it for you - those who are not well educated in a subject greatly overestimate their ability at the subject, because they don't know all of the things that they don't know.

Those who are better educated in a subject greatly underestimate their ability at the subject, because they know how complicated it is.

Now you two don't know about science, and that's ok - that's not an insult and i don't want any of this to be insulting. But it is meant to be a reminder that you are talking about one of if not the most technical and complicated abstract subjects that we as a species pursue. If you don't even understand the "scientific method" (a distinct term) and how the "scientific community" (another distinct term) works and comes to consensus, how can you possibly hope to decipher fact (science) from fiction (propaganda)?

I keep having to post this, but i'll do it again. The scientific community is made up of all kinds of people such as university lecturers and students (yes, your kids might be part of the community), amateur scientists, people at research institutions.... anyone who cares enough to approach things methodically and systematically, anyone interested in finding out as much as we possibly can about everything we can. Real science does not get paid based on results - the funding is provided for the research and the research finds whatever it finds. You can't lie about science, because other anal bastards (far worse than me) are just waiting to find something wrong with it and pillory it. That's how the scientific community works, it's like internet comments only worse. You can't get away with doing bad science for long.

Most people in scientific research do not have a lot of money, do you understand that? I can tell you right now - i contribute to scientific papers and such, so that makes me part of the scientific community. I'm just a post-grad student living on a student loan and doing something that i enjoy. My lecturers make a living, but they are not well-off by any means. We also suffer tax when politicians take our evidence and twist it in front of our faces. And we're left standing here, exasperated, wondering why you'd listen to non-experts over experts. If your doctor said you had diabetes, you wouldn't ask a politician to confirm it? If you want a scientific opinion, consult the scientific community.

I would love you to ask yourself the following question; "What do i really know about the scientific community and the scientific method?" Because if you took half an hour one day to go to an accredited university and ask the science department about how science works, how consensus is formed, and what makes good scientific practice, you'd be able to rid yourselves of these myths that somehow all scientists (i.e. average people, doing scientific research for the sake of science) are in some kind of club or gang or being paid to say that humans are causing climate devastation. The reason the majority of people say that is because the science speaks for itself and is not open to interpretation. The facts are facts.

Are you really thinking this through?

I want to show you one final thing, and it comes from the wikipedia page on Scientific method (which i recommend you read to avail yourself about which you speak, please don't speak from ignorance).

"The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false."

The science speaks for itself, and i recommend you start listening to real scientists. Why prefer the opinion of a few individuals who are either flawed in their scientific reasoning or flat out being paid to lie? The scientific community is in full agreement.

Edit: Sorry for the long post, but you're talking about something you don't understand and it exasperates me. You wouldn't come here and talk about the details of internal medicine, but you're quite happy to tell a scientist, to his face, that he doesn't know science.

@Trancecoach - they respond in literature all the time. A scientist's response is to prove it, scientifically. They do, and are, all the time. But most people do not understand science and those that do still find scientific papers daunting and difficult to follow. People like the two i mentioned above, they don't have a hope in hell of understanding the source of the information, and they sadly look to the wrong people to explain it to them.

Never heard of the Dunning–Kruger effect before, thanks for the link. Reminds me of when I was 18-19. All were idiots to me then and I knew everything. The more I learn the more I wince at my past.>> ^Psychologic:

"Ya know, I see this stuff... it's desperate..."
He certainly knows what he's talking about.

here is another video on similar topic. it talked about the lake wobegon effect and the dunning kruger effect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb8CXDhLPsA