This explains a lot.

The Dunning-Kruger effect describes the phenomenon whereby people who don’t know anything about something think they know more than those who do. The peculiar part is that those who lack the expertise are often far more confident and forceful when they discuss the issue than those who are knowledgeable.

This is because those who are knowledgeable know enough to know what they don’t know, whereas the pseudo-experts do not. The effect ends up being that the idiots with only partial knowledge come off as forceful and confident, while those who are more educated end up hesitating and appearing less versed on the topic.

Here are some main findings:

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

So the question for all of us is simple: how often have we been this guy? How many people do we know who are still this guy? And how do we avoid being this guy in the future? It’s definitely an issue for someone like me since my whole thing is quickly building (and sharing with others) models for understanding complex topics.

It’s also good info to have when observing two people in a debate. Is the “weaker” person really less knowledgeable, or is he simply less confident because he’s careful and humble?

Links

[ The Dunning-Kruger Effect | wikipedia.org ]

A new friend and I had an extraordinarily productive and meaningful discussion about religion last night. This is noteworthy because he is a devout Mormon while I am an atheist. What impressed me most was the fact that everything was handled from the foundation of science and logic (he’s a PhD candidate in Computer Science).

The debate was civil and moved briskly in a productive direction; we literally agreed on just about everything. When we reached the appropriate point I openly asked him why he believed in Mormonism when he openly acknowledged how illogical it all was from a scientific point of view. He gave me this answer, which I find to be excellent.

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My belief in God is not based on willful delusion, but on empirical (i.e. experiential) evidence. In fact, my acceptance of the religious principles I adhere to are logically built on this evidence. The issue is what you are willing to accept as valid evidence. As a trained scientific researcher (in the field of information systems), I have strong respect for the scientific method and consider it to be the best means available have for acquiring knowledge. In using the scientific method, scientists make epistemological decisions to only accept as evidence those predictions of phenomena that are measurable, testable, objective, reproducible, and so on. However, not all phenomena are measurable, etc. However, the fact that a certain phenomenon cannot be assessed using the scientific method does not mean that it isn’t real. It simply means it is beyond the scope of what science can validate. To claim otherwise would be an obvious fallacy. Many human experiences fall into this category. Most personal experiences are not objective or testable. In my case, my acceptance of the existence of God is based on several instances in my life in which I have experienced or “felt” a communication from God. None of these experiences are verifiable using the scientific method, yet they were as real as anything else I have experienced in my life. Simply put, I have made a decision to accept these experiences as evidence of the existence of God. In other words, I have broadened my epistemological criteria to accept as valid these profound and highly individualistic experiences. The willingness to accept spiritual experiences as evidence is a great divider of theists and atheists. Knowledge gained through spiritual experiences is obviously not scientific, but millions if not billions of people have accepted such knowledge as the basis for their belief. Such acceptance is not unfounded or thoughtless, but rests on experiences that these people consider very real.

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So in other words, he agrees, as a scientist, that evidence is the only thing we can trust. All he has done is expand his own personal criteria for evidence to include the spiritual experiences that he has had. This doesn’t solve anything tangible, but at least it advances the debate to the realm of discussing those experiences and whether or not they should be included.

Most importantly, we’re speaking logically — Mormon to atheist — which I think is refreshing.

So how should this discussion proceed? What’s the next step?

Question: would any of you guys participate if I were to put up a forum? I’m considering it under the assumption that many of you would enjoy some middle ground between commenting on someone else’s site (too limited) and having your own site (too much work). A forum provides a nice sweet spot.

Would you guys participate? And if so, what kind of functionality you want from it?

Here are my initial thoughts:

1. Relatively few categories, if not just one
2. Focus on your content, not mine
3. Wide-open discussion (I’ve never censored a post on my site)
4. Leverage the blog to fuel participation

…that’s about it so far.

Thoughts?

Scott Adams has posted another highly inflammatory post — this time claiming that popular evidence for evolution is bullshit. I’m no longer surprised by these pieces of his, but I have figured something out. He’s playing games with his readers by creating incendiary titles that don’t match his post content.

His post is titled, “Fossils — Still Bullshit”. Ok, now he’s got our attention. Then he goes on to say that he’s NOT claiming any of the following:

1. Evolution isn’t a scientific fact.
2. All evidence for evolution is false.
3. God created the earth.

His game is simple — create a title that will rile people up because it indicates an extraordinarily weak argument is going to follow, and then proceed to point out how that’s not actually what he was saying.

It’s a win-win for him. When someone comes back and says, “Eh, fossils are real, the evidence is real, you’re wrong.”, he just says, “You’re stupid. I already pointed out that my title was incorrect within my post.”

Great. You win again, Scott.  You tricked people into believing for a second that you didn’t believe in evolution. But all you actually said was that scientific evidence for evolution (which you admit is completely strong) is so complex that it’s difficult to dumb down for laymen, and that in an attempt to reduce its complexity it gets mangled.

I think it’s a great point, but must he package it as an anti-evolution argument in order to make people react so strongly? I’m aware of the whole “tainment” concept, but at some point the style can become too similar to trolling. Scott is unbelievably awesome without having to resort to such tactics.:

I need some help here. I have a friend with whom I’m debating evolution. He is a fundamentalist Christian (wait for it), but he has an uncharacteristic understanding of, and respect for, science.

So he’s an extremely intelligent guy who doesn’t deny the validity of science. In fact, he actually accepts microevolution. He’s familiar with the various moth studies and such, and accepts them as solid. What he disputes is the concept of macroevolution. For those not up on the terms, macroevolution is any evolution that occurs at or above the species level, meaning that over time the offspring species would become unable to mate with the parent species.

But Rick’s main argument concerns less subtle differences. He doesn’t care if moth A becomes moth B, and that after many generations they won’t be able to procreate with each other. He wants more than that. He quite simple rejects the notion of all life having a common ancestor.

So here’s the problem: his argument is that he and I both have beliefs; I believe in macroevolution and he believes in God. When I show him that my beliefs (and not his) are backed by empirical evidence, he refutes the evidence using assorted websites that dispute various parts of the findings. After this happened for like the third time I realized something.

If I cannot explain macroevolution to him — or anyone else — that means I don’t totally understand it myself. And if I believe it without understanding it then it IS a belief. So on that point he’s absolutely correct.

All that remains is me thinking that my belief is based on more evidence than his belief, and that’s where the evidence comes in. Hence a never ending cycle simply because I don’t understand the science well enough myself to articulate and defend it.

So that raises the question in the title of this post: how would YOU explain macroevolution to someone who believes in science but simply doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to support it? Is it possible to do without learning a whole lot of biology yourself?

From a pet psychic and the Dangerous Intersection:

I wouldn’t wish to accept personal gain as a result of an act of human sacrifice.

Brilliant.

What follows are some major points from a most interesting comment in response to my post on why I left the University of Phoenix.

So, after your very long write up on why it doesn’t matter where you get the degree, your ego forced you to go to brick-n-mortar. I think you care too much of what others think, than your own thought — and to put UoP on your resume is too much for you to bear … in your prior notes on why UoP was a good place to go, you mention.. “If you are in the professional world already and trying to get a bachelors or masters, UoP is probably going to be just as good as a small to medium-sized state or private university. The odds of your company not accepting what’s embraced by tons of Fortune 500 companies are slim.” But your ego couldn’t handle putting such the UoP joke that was before pragmatic and really had nothing to do with your pragmatic fortune 500 post than with your all-consuming ego (your blog is a manifestation of it.)

I think you’ve utterly mis-characterized my decision to not attend UoP. If you’ll notice, it wasn’t until I actually interacted with them and saw their glaring flaws that I made the decision not to attend the institution. I didn’t go into the details in the post itself, but since you’ve made it an issue I’ll offer some examples.

1. The experiences with my handlers at the school were reminiscent of being conned into something. I am quite tuned to such things and it was utterly palpable. Their answers to me questions were defensive in nature, as well as evasive. It felt as if they were running an operation that was under investigation and about to be shut down. And this was while I was a proponent of the place.
2. On the day I was supposed to sign up, nothing worked. I had my advisor and a tech support guy on the line for close to two hours, trying to show me how to get into my classes. I’ve actually done the technology implementations on online classes before myself, and have a bit of web design and web development knowledge. This was a total hack. A kludge of a hack.The site was a collection of heterogeneous crap thrown together through hyperlinks, many of which didn’t even work. The guys on the other end of the phone were freaking out trying to convince me that this was atypical, but it was clearly not. The bottom line is that I got an extreme feeling of low quality from the entire institution — a feeling of pretending to be something it was not.The reason I wrote such a positive post before about the UoP is because I asssumed it had 90% of the quality of a decent, small state university. My theory was that the quality was basically the same, and that it just had a stigma that it did not deserve. As such, I defended UoP based on the reasons I mentioned. I was simply wrong about the place. It is in fact far lower quality than I previously imagined — so much so that I would fear for my degree’s future worth if I were to graduate from there. So no, I didn’t change my mind about my post; I simply received more information that showed me my initial assumptions were incorrect.

You need to write a few blog posts on your ego and how it affects your talking about your car, your toys, your schools and how to re-re-redesign the looks of your website… I’m sure there will be plenty of “holes” in my post, that you can logic your way to a witty reply, but then again, isn’t that ego looking to refluff itself…? Anyway good luck in your lifelong wrestle with your inner voice and your fear of what will think of you.

Actually, I’m working on an ego post now that you’ll probably enjoy. Of course, I’ve already discussed this a number of times, including here: http://dmiessler.com/archives/1152. The short response to your comment is that I acknowledge your observation and agree with it.

But since you seem to cast the whole thing in a rather negative light I feel inclined to defend myself to some degree. I don’t think having an ego is something to apologize for any more than having sexual desire toward attractive women. It’s natural. I’m aware of it and I enjoy writing about it, as I do all my various flaws.

I would ask you to consider, however, that there is arguably a negative trade-off to having no ego. That downside is the reluctance to voice your opinions and ask for input on them. You won’t encounter many interesting people who don’t have an ego. Why? Because your odds of running into an interesting person by chance who doesn’t make their opinions known aren’t good.

The odds are that if you find someone interesting, it’s because they’re saying something in public, which requires confidence, courage, and therefore some form of ego. Think of 100 people that have contributed most to the world and the majority of them probably like to be heard, seen, interacted with, or otherwise experienced.

Anyway, I have much to say on the matter, but I’ll save that for another day.

Cheers,

-Daniel

My favorite thing to do is try and understand how the world works. This is what gives me go, and it’s the purpose of this website. Whenever I have something shown to me, or I “discover” something I add it to my ever increasing body of knowledge that I use to analyze the rest of the world. Ultimately, the goal is to find the unified theory of everything (trite, but true).

I am sometimes rather lumbering when attempting to express myself, and it bothers me greatly. I’ll think I’ve assembled something worthwhile only to find that it collapses under the scrutiny of “many eyes”. This is embarrassing, and it hurts my ego when it happens. The common-sense approach is to simply not overextend — to be very careful with every word, research extensively, and don’t post anything if you aren’t 101% sure. That’s safe. That’s professional. That’s mature.

Meh…I can’t do it. My obsession with learning is so compelling that I simply must share what I “think” I know about the world. I do this for selfish reasons that may seem counter-intuitive, i.e. I do it to learn just as much as to teach. In other words, I am actually sort of gaming the system by putting forth my ideas framed as “lessons”, while simultaneously hoping someone will come along and show me why I’m wrong.

This is no attempt at manipulation or gesture of false humility. I truly want to be shown the flaws in my viewpoints. Here’s what I wrote on the matter back when I first started this *log:

Being right is boring, not knowing is through-provoking, but being wrong is absolutely exhilarating.

The unfortunate consequence of the fervor with which I put forth my ideas and viewpoints is that I occasionally often overextend and come off looking dumb. As I said, this irks me immensely, and because of search engines my bouts with stupidity will haunt me forever.

But you know what? I say fuck it. I’d honestly rather overextend and fall over than never make the attempt. I think the debate is worth it. I think what we all learn from the discussion is worth it. If I have to look stupid sometimes just so I can put a thought onto paper, so be it.

So to you who are reading this, I ask that you forgive me when I stumble. Please don’t confuse my strong assertions with arrogance or the belief that I really do have all the answers. I don’t. I’m looking for them, I want them badly, and I’m willing to occasionally look like a fool to get them.

The difference between me and a typical evangelist is that I have no loyalty to my opinions. I just want to be right. I truly don’t care if I’m right when we start the debate or if I’m right after it’s over. Either way, I’ve either learned something or helped someone else do the same.:

I read in a review of Christopher Hitchens’s book God Is Not Great that he approaches the argument for atheism differently than his predecessors and contemporaries. Here’s the breakdown:

• Bertrand Russell — Philosophy
• Richard Dawkins — Science
• Christopher Hitchens — Literature

I like this diversity of approaches, and I’ve just purchased Hitchens’ book and will be reading it after I finish The God Delusion by Dawkins.

This is one of my first blog entries, made way back in 1996.

[ Link: Intellectual Comfort ]