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Dunning–Kruger effect and flat-earthers: An exploratory analysis
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoThe real conspiracy here is that the people who truly believe the world is flat died several hundred years ago, and today's camp is doing it just for YouTube views and ad revenue share.
- Simulacra 3y agoThis is what I think. No rational, sane person could possibly believe the world is flat. But it makes them special, and it gives them something to add meaning to their lives, so I guess we let them live in their delusion.
- throwaway14356 3y agoThere are 2 other reasons. 1) It is hilarious to see people defend a fact they've just accepted blindly without understanding any of it. It doesn't matter if it is true or not, what matters is how you've decided it was. 2) There are many topics people don't want you to talk about. They feel obligated to bother you with their hysteria indefinitely or until you shut up about it. 1 and 2 combined they come raging at you that you must accept this reality they've accepted on faith. They cant debate a topic! In stead they talk with others about that person following the wrong believes. It is entirely fine to know things, it is fine to take things on faith, believe in the lord if you want. Just say you trust the scientists who say the earth is round. If flat earth bothers you explain how one can check the findings and what is wrong with the experiments that so clearly show the earth is flat. If the boat doesn't vanish behind the horizon because the light bends around the curvature, does that demonstrate the earth is round? Ubuntu is the only valid OS. I can't explain why but I know it to be true. You should really just accept it.
- presidentender 3y agoThis confirms my preconceived beliefs, and so I'm happy to see the science agreeing with intuition. Unfortunately, exactly the same attitude would lead the people in question to reject the validity of the result! Not only does the round earth conspiracy insist on using garbage 'science' to propagate the big lie, they are also using that same science to insult the flat earthers! This will therefore agree with their intuition.
- drewcoo 3y ago> This confirms my preconceived beliefs Hey - that's what everyone thinks the Dunning-Kruger effect does! https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/202012/dunning-kruger-isnt-real https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/2020... There really ought to be a "meta Dunning-Kruger effect" that states something like "everyone overconfidently thinks that everyone else is overconfident, so of course you're correct, smart, and good looking."
- EA-3167 3y agoThere's also the corollary for educated, intelligent people, "I just assume that people who disagree with me aren't really disagreeing with me, they're merely ill-informed."
- avgcorrection 3y agoSomone who has read the paper: Hmm, this could be the Dunning-Kruger effect in action but I’m not sure. Someone who has read the intro: Aww shucks, I’m surrounded by fools again… Someone whose knowledge of it is limited to watching other people talk about it: Aah, the Dunning-Kruger Effect strikes yet again! Oh, how predictable these overconfident hobgoblins are! But I see right through them!!
- mynameishere 3y agoSome people just insist on getting trolled. You explain out what trolling is, what it looks like, the purpose of it (wasting your time involving you in hopeless arguments for their own amusement). And they still insist on getting trolled. Nobody thinks the earth is flat, dumbasses.
- baq 3y agoHanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
- beezlewax 3y agoThe chief trolls don't believe but some of their lower intelligence followers might.
- kbelder 3y agoThis is it. I would bet that 90%+ of those who claim to be flat-earthers absolutely believe the Earth is spherical. It's just hard to get them to admit it.
- neilv 3y ago> We focus on Spain, a country that sadly has some of the most relevant figures on this topic in the Spanish-speaking world. Regarding the overt judgment of "sadly", is that common in research papers in some fields? I'm more accustomed to the appearance of more intellectual distance.
- lookboil 3y agoI would have thought that kind of editorialisation would be inappropriate for an academic paper
- meepmorp 3y agoNone of the authors seem to be native English speakers (all are Spaniards). Maybe it's just a language thing.
- anon4242 3y agoOr maybe, if they're all Spaniards, they are just saddened by their country's prominent position in this domain?
- lookboil 3y agoGosh, flat earthers are so stupid. Everyone knows we're on a gigantic ice ball and the sun just melted a section of it which we reside in.
- fallingfrog 3y agoHuh?
- swayvil 3y agoMost of us believe what we believe because it's popularly considered to be the smart thing to believe. We don't actually do the experiment. It's basically a blind, insectile conformity. Which isn't all bad, of course. But don't be smug about it.
- nuancebydefault 3y agoIn fact, think about why most of us think the earth is not flat. Indeed because, a lot of people who we deem smart tell us it is not flat. Most of those also got it from hearsay. Less than 1 percent of us tried an experiment proving the earth's (non) flatness. Contrary to me. In fact, I think the earth is not flat, because I think it is the conclusion of common sense reasoning. Yes, Dunning Kruger at work. TLDR nobody can be sure of anything. The paper does not change that.
- CyberDildonics 3y agoThis is the type of thing actual flat earthers say - "I don't understand it, so no one else does either". Meanwhile plenty of people understand basics of international flight paths, satellites or seeing a boat disappear in the horizon.
- swayvil 3y agoMaybe it's a matter of epistemological taste. The thought of rubber-stamping mere authority is so distasteful that "being wrong" is actually preferable. I can relate with that.
- CyberDildonics 3y agoFirst, "epistemological taste" is an oxymoron. Second, believing something with overwhelming evidence is not 'rubber stamping mere authority'. Third, if someone wanted to not 'rubber stamp authority' why would they start with the earth being round? That's almost like not believing in gravity. There are so many fights to pick where conventional wisdom might be wrong or actual authorities could be lying or omitting the truth, why pick something with no evidence?
- zvmaz 3y agoBertrand Russell wrote an excellent essay called "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish" [1] where he recounts of past intellectual follies. He wrote the essay to "[...] help in seeing our own times in perspective, and as not much worse than other ages that our ancestors lived through without ultimate disaster." As for intellectual follies leading to disasters, it can be argued that our own follies did indeed lead to disasters. [1] http://www.ditext.com/russell/rubbish.html http://www.ditext.com/russell/rubbish.html
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago> There is a significant negative correlation between science literacy—overall and practically all its dimensions—and overconfidence in science in this group. How many of them when told "hey, you are over-confident aka you are wrong on things you think you are right on" said "oops, my bad" and changed their perspective? Cough cough American politics/American society in general
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- friend_and_foe 3y agoSomeone should inform the author that the Dunning Kruger effect cannot be reproduced and has been replicated with random data. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-kruger-effect-probably-not-real https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-... It's an attractive idea that people love to believe, but unfortunately it isn't real.
- richardjam73 3y agoMaybe it is but I'm too rubbish at stats to understand either proof or disproof. However ever since I read this article a while back I consider that the DK effect is not true.
- throw0101a 3y agoSee also "Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues": > Instead of interventions focused on objective knowledge alone, these findings suggest that focusing on changing individuals’ perceptions of their own knowledge may be a helpful first step. The challenge then becomes finding appropriate ways to convince anti-consensus individuals that they are not as knowledgeable as they think they are. One option may be to encourage people to try to explain the mechanisms underlying the complex scientific phenomena at issue. This has been shown to reduce subjective knowledge (33, 44) and increase deference to experts (45). Another way to potentially make feelings of ignorance more salient to people is to give them reference points. People feel uncertain about choices they understand less well when considering options together, but not when evaluating them separately (38).This finding suggests that people may be led to realize that they know less about vaccination, for example, than about mechanisms they are more familiar with (from their careers or hobbies say), if presented in parallel. * https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0038 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0038 Or, as Boing Boing stated, "Scientists study why people do not believe in scientific studies": * https://boingboing.net/2023/06/14/scientists-study-why-people-do-not-believe-in-scientific-studies.html https://boingboing.net/2023/06/14/scientists-study-why-peopl...
- fallingfrog 3y agoThere’s a great YouTube essay called “in search of a flat earth” that explores this phenomenon. It’s definitely worth a watch- it sort of lays bare the mindset of a group of people who want the world to be a simple, familiar place where there is certainty about everything. And, the host actually goes to a really long, calm lake and using a camera, shows the curvature of the earth in a visceral, visual way that is way more moving than I thought it would be. https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44 https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44