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Increasing the Awareness of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (2014)

envolt 7y ago
Call me sadist, but I do feel good when I make a fresher (JS expert) realize that plain callback method doesn't make it Async.
aaron695 7y ago
The graph is false like almost all peoples under standing of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Killing it is a better option. The real Dunning-Kruger effect is people can rank their skill well, but the lesser skilled, although they rank themselves ok, are not as accurate proportionally as higher skilled people. Everyone is still fully aware where they rank So the graph would be less wrong if it had confidence variance on the Y axis.
deehouie 7y ago
Why is this post not getting more comments!? It's one of the most important dynamics driving innovation in technology. On the one hand, the misconceived confidence of an unskilled newbie gives him/her the motivation to dive into the unknown, tackling difficult problems that others have tried and failed. But he/she does not know that. If the person is smart and persistent enough, there might be a chance of a breakthrough. I think there are plenty of examples in science and mathematics where a new perspective from an unknown scholar helps solve a hard problem. On the other hand, the skilled people, knowing the particular problem is hard, won't bother to try. And the consequence is too much knowledge is a impediment to progress.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  > Why is this post not getting more comments!? Because it was posted on an internal forum that discusses community management problem (Meta site of Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange), it's not a blog post. Naturally it doesn't have any visibility. I post it on HN because I believe the post is insightful and deserves public exposure.
- rasz 7y ago
  something like this? https://youtu.be/t1R9IQF0Y9s?t=28m5s https://youtu.be/t1R9IQF0Y9s?t=28m5s spoiler, its uBeam scam. Theranos, Batteriser, there are plenty of those.
joker3 7y ago
That's not what Dunning and Kruger actually found. See https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/ https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-... for a discussion of the actual Dunning-Kruger effect and some possible explanations of it.
leshokunin 7y ago
I would venture a guess that people who know of Dunning Kruger effect won’t write articles about it because they don’t know the subject well enough and someone else might be the right person.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Indeed, most of the writing about D-K directly contradicts their findings. If there is a particular effect, different from a sort of reversion to the mean, it would be that the least skilled in any topic tend to also be unskilled at others, including estimating what is average. I.e., they don't overrate their skills because of overinflated egos; rather, they don't understand the question well enough for their answer to mean anything.

Call me sadist, but I do feel good when I make a fresher (JS expert) realize that plain callback method doesn't make it Async.

aaron695 7y ago

The graph is false like almost all peoples under standing of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Killing it is a better option. The real Dunning-Kruger effect is people can rank their skill well, but the lesser skilled, although they rank themselves ok, are not as accurate proportionally as higher skilled people. Everyone is still fully aware where they rank So the graph would be less wrong if it had confidence variance on the Y axis.

deehouie 7y ago

Why is this post not getting more comments!? It's one of the most important dynamics driving innovation in technology. On the one hand, the misconceived confidence of an unskilled newbie gives him/her the motivation to dive into the unknown, tackling difficult problems that others have tried and failed. But he/she does not know that. If the person is smart and persistent enough, there might be a chance of a breakthrough. I think there are plenty of examples in science and mathematics where a new perspective from an unknown scholar helps solve a hard problem. On the other hand, the skilled people, knowing the particular problem is hard, won't bother to try. And the consequence is too much knowledge is a impediment to progress.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago
> Why is this post not getting more comments!? Because it was posted on an internal forum that discusses community management problem (Meta site of Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange), it's not a blog post. Naturally it doesn't have any visibility. I post it on HN because I believe the post is insightful and deserves public exposure.
rasz 7y ago
something like this? https://youtu.be/t1R9IQF0Y9s?t=28m5s https://youtu.be/t1R9IQF0Y9s?t=28m5s spoiler, its uBeam scam. Theranos, Batteriser, there are plenty of those.

joker3 7y ago

That's not what Dunning and Kruger actually found. See https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/ https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-... for a discussion of the actual Dunning-Kruger effect and some possible explanations of it.

leshokunin 7y ago

I would venture a guess that people who know of Dunning Kruger effect won’t write articles about it because they don’t know the subject well enough and someone else might be the right person.

ncmncm 7y ago
Indeed, most of the writing about D-K directly contradicts their findings. If there is a particular effect, different from a sort of reversion to the mean, it would be that the least skilled in any topic tend to also be unskilled at others, including estimating what is average. I.e., they don't overrate their skills because of overinflated egos; rather, they don't understand the question well enough for their answer to mean anything.