The author is onto something that Dunning-Kruger is suspicious, but the argument is wrong. The "statistical noise" plot actually demonstrates a very noteworthy

The author is onto something that Dunning-Kruger is suspicious, but the argument is wrong. The "statistical noise" plot actually demonstrates a very noteworthy conclusion: that Usain Bolt estimates his own 100m ability as the same as a random child's. This would be a great demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect, not a counterargument. On the other hand, regression to the mean rather than autocorrelation does explain how you could get a spurious Dunning-Kruger effect. Say that 100 people all have some true skill level, and all undergo an assessment. Each person's score will be equal to their true skill level plus some random noise based on how they were performing that day or how the assessment's questions matched their knowledge. There will be a statistical effect where the people who did the worst on the test tend to be people with the most negative idiosyncratic noise term. Even if they have perfect self-knowledge about their true skill, they will tend to overestimate their score on this specific assessment. Regression to the mean has broad relevance, and explains things like why we tend to be disappointed by the sequel to a great novel.