>> DK doesn't mean no correlation, it means inverse correlation. > No, it means that people's self-assessment, their prediction of what their test scores will

>> DK doesn't mean no correlation, it means inverse correlation. > No, it means that people's self-assessment, their prediction of what their test scores will be, is uncorrelated (or more precisely weakly correlated--that's what the original D-K data showed) with their actual test scores. The problem is that in common Internet discussions, there is no fixed meaning of D-K. When things heat up, D-K becomes "his belief in his competent is an indication of his incompetence,ha" but in more calm debate is become "less competent people have a somewhat less accurate understanding of their competence". In this form, D-K is a classic Motte and Baily device [1]. It's plausible, unsurprising and uninteresting that less competent people in a field self-access somewhat less accurately (the motte). It's completely unsupported but very "juicy" that someone's claim of competence indicates an incompetence (the bailey). [1] To one more pieces of rhetorical which I'm mention also proves nothing but is illuminating - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy