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Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence and negative attitudes
- izzydata 3y agoIs this similar to the dunning-kruger effect?
- xeonmc 3y agomore like the "midwit distribution" memes.
- stanford_labrat 3y agohttps://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit hard to find a good example that is funny while also not crass/political, but they generally go something like this: https://i.imgflip.com/5dh26p.jpg https://i.imgflip.com/5dh26p.jpg
- giraffe_lady 3y agoA good web-dev one I've seen has "use bootstrap" at the ends and "create standardized design system" in the middle.
- mrbungie 3y agoSome good examples: - Related to the post at hand and some of its comments: https://images.hive.blog/0x0/https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/lucylin/EocCoQbzp8oiKndREbGeW2jg3Pnqbqmn4g5jn4ypooDaqiFXcAaKrmVGVUsfF2seX1e.jpg https://images.hive.blog/0x0/https://files.peakd.com/file/pe... - Meta 1: https://programmerhumor.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/programmerhumor-io-programming-memes-83ee675abcbccc8.png https://programmerhumor.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/progra... - Meta 2: https://assets.website-files.com/611cc49abc685aa7e3817103/643e622216efe2015ae220b0_FTyqKt9WQAAO2bh.png https://assets.website-files.com/611cc49abc685aa7e3817103/64... - The one I hope most people would follow in Data Science/Engineering: https://i.redd.it/s7olw2f01ra81.jpg https://i.redd.it/s7olw2f01ra81.jpg
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoOr "Ackchyually guy"[0]. [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy
- oldandtired 3y agoIt's obvious from the Abstract that they are not referring to the Dunning-Kruger Effect as it is NOT mentioned in the Abstract, which is the highlight of the paper. Actually who the hell knows when the paper is essentially behind a paywall. The Abstract gives nothing away about what they have found.
- lusus_naturae 3y agoThe study has an interesting approach to avoiding self-reporting level of confidence. > We propose and use in the paper, an indirect measure of confidence in knowledge, defined as the ratio of incorrect to ‘don’t know’ answers in any knowledge questionnaire, as long as it had the format true/false/don’t know (or similar). The rationale is that an incorrect answer corresponds to an overestimation of one’s knowledge (more details in the main text). On face value it seems like a good way to avoid the pitfalls of self-report surveys, perhaps also useful in affective modeling.
- svnt 3y agoHow do they/you remove the confound of becoming more conservative vs less confident, or do they assume that overconfidence and being conservative are opposites? I might be motivated to be more conservative because I have a reputation to protect, but not actually be less confident. This may have an effect just as much as because I am more experienced. I may also have just learned not to express my overconfidence interpersonally, while still exhibiting it in practice. Expressing appropriate levels of confidence is a skill, not just the absence of overconfidence. I can’t access the paper currently.
- subw00f 3y ago> learned not to express my overconfidence interpersonally, while still exhibiting it in practice What does that mean? If you're overconfident in the forest and nobody hears it, it doesn't really matter, right?
- svnt 3y agoIf you still act on your confidence, but learn to give the right answers understating it in conversation, it could be that you gave those same right answers on the test reactively and then their interpretation is probably flawed. In this case, additional knowledge wouldn’t actually represent a diminishment of your confidence in a functional sense, but a learned compensation to social feedback.
- cutemonster 3y ago
- colordrops 3y agoVery meta study.
- archarios 3y agoWhat does "intermediate knowledge" mean in this context?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- archarios 3y agoLike I have a bachelors degree in engineering. Is that intermediate or advanced? I feel like saying my science knowledge is anything beyond intermediate is a bit of an overstatement personally.
- wongarsu 3y ago> I feel like saying my science knowledge is anything beyond intermediate is a bit of an overstatement personally That's not overconfident, I'm lead to conclude that you have advanced science knowledge.
- f1shy 3y agoAbsolutely advance. No question. At least in this context.
- burnished 3y agoI didnt find out what standard they use, but personally I'd say intermediate sounds about right. I also have an engineering degree and while I know more than the average bear in many scientific disciplines I couldn't say that any of it is advanced. I'm thinking of times where I went to the library to dig deeper on a topic and discovered a huge and complex topic just laying in wait.
- at_a_remove 3y agoI have one in physics, but I have also taken a rather a lot (given the degree) in biology, chemistry, civil engineering, and electrical engineering. Went some places also not usual in math. And I've worked in IT since forever. There's a lot of stuff where I take a glance at it and realize I'm just looking at a single hull plate on a battleship. What I am getting at is that if you have just intermediate knowledge in a bunch of places, I think it lends itself to sensing that you're just a paramecium stuck to the side of some N-dimensional construct. There's so much. I had a professor who was the expert in the second excited state of Helium-3. That was his thing. Just a single needle in the whale-sized blowfish of physics.
- emodendroket 3y agoI feel like we've all encountered this guy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- malfist 3y agoSome of us have been that guy.
- not_enoch_wise 3y agoHacker News is this
- neilv 3y agoOne of my favorite parts of n-gate.com's 'summaries' of HN posts was the phrase "incorrecting each other".
- mathisfun123 3y agoto wit: <gestures broadly around>
- not_enoch_wise 3y agoFucking fantastic
- maxwell 3y agoAlexander Pope was right.
- biomcgary 3y agoAs a scientist, I've seen lots of people who are overconfident in both themselves and overconfident in science. IMO, a good PhD science program helps students master a discipline, but also to recognize the limits of the discipline. For example, 23andMe thought they would revolutionize drug development with a huge genetics dataset. In practice, genetic information alone is not sufficient to treat the majority of diseases that affect individuals and society. There is too much environmental variation affecting human biology for purely genetic approaches. Understanding the real limits of knowledge is vital to pushing knowledge forward where we can. As a biologist, one of the things I most appreciate about Sabine Hossenfelder (a physicist) is that she highlights the limits of knowledge in her (and adjacent) fields. She gets a lot of push back (and is sometimes wrong), but having the discussion is vital to science. Acknowledging the limits of science is not a negative attitude about science, but a positive one. A clear idea of the current limits of science (both theoretically and practically) is instrumental to pushing through them. For example, the scholarly papers highlighting the replication crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis) are actually very useful to maintaining the health of science as a human endeavor, not a critique of science. Scientists need a clear understanding of the scientific foundations that they are building on.
- NikolaNovak 3y agoI find that coloquially we use the term "science" in several distinct meanings, two of which are: 1. Science as the body of knowledge 2. Science as a method / approach I also find that mixing the meanings/perspectives/intent up in a single conversation is common, sometimes accidentally sometimes intentionally. In my ignorance (ComSci major, so not a real science :), I would describe myself as extremely positive / confident to "Science, the approach/method" and, through that approach, pragmatic about the "Science the current body of knowledge". In other words: Yes, there are very much limits to what we currently know, and some of what we think we know will turn out to be wrong, subtly or catastrophically. There are definitely huge limits and uncertainties to Science the body of knowledge! But, acknowledging it is kinda the point, and the best way to figure it out that we are currently aware of is through scientific approach. (I've just realized I might even have become a zealot that you describe, because I can't even figure out what a plausible & feasible alternative method is, if your goals are to actually figure things out. To that point, I find humility and skepticism about your current science body of knowledge a crucial part of science the method, something which most other methods lack). I find distinction is crucial especially in political and religious discussion frameworks. Otherwise, I never know if I agree or disagree with statements regarding "limits of science" etc. (This is all further mixed up by zillion of daily popular articles where "Science says that [...]!!!" or "[...], scientists find", which... ugh, oversimplify at best and deceive more likely) What are your thoughts?
- photochemsyn 3y agoThe article is paywalled but the research group has a 2021 arxiv publication on the same topic: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing: excess confidence explains negative attitudes towards science" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.11193.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.11193.pdf It's a survey-based study but the obvious thing to consider is, what do they mean by 'negative attitudes towards science'? Are they talking about the scientific process itself, i.e. experiment and observation coupled to theoretical modeling as the basis of discovering how our universe functions? Or are they talking about negative attitudes towards the 'science-based' pronouncements of governmental and academic institutions? Certainly the modern scientific process takes place at such a level of specialization that even working scientists in one field are usually unable to judge the quality of results obtained in another field without doing a lot of time-consuming research, but if a long record of failure of peer review exists (and it does) then it shouldn't be surprising when people lose faith in academic and governmental institutions - but I'd guess they still believe that the scientific process itself is valid, it's just that the received wisdom of the white-robed annoited priesthood is no longer taken at face value. There are many reasons for this - e.g. while science may have been viewed by all as wonderful in the 1950s, many discoveries (environmental carcinogens, fossil fueled global warming, etc.) have upset major economic and institutional powers leading to coordinated attacks on the reliability of science in major media outlets. Then there's the long record of pharmaceutical skullduggery (the push to prescribe opiates for just about any condition, leading to an addiction epidemic, the failure of a wide variety of science-approved medications to live up to claims and/or the production of negative side effects (Vioxx etc.)) - and as far as the vaccine controversy, yes it was a terrible idea to put organometallic preservatives in multi-use bottles of vaccines, and yes it was done to cut costs, but the claim it led to an epidemic of autism isn't well-supported, there are many more plausible industrial sources of heavy metals to blame for high childhood exposures, but that's not as convenient for class-action lawsuits due to vaccination records, etc. This doesn't mean that most science isn't fairly reliable, but the glaring failures are what make the headlines, and there have been quite a few of them. If we really want to regain public trust in academic institutions, divorce proceedings aimed at kicking the corporate interests out of the academic sphere will have to be initiated, meaning for example no more exclusive private rights to NIH-financed inventions and no more revolving doors between academic institutions and pharmaceutical executive boards. Don't hold your breath, we live in an era of systematic insitutional corruption that Trofim Lysenko would have fit right into.
- bedobi 3y agoThis study basically describes 99% of people here, lol. Because you know how to write code, you're suddenly an expert not only at that but also at economics, medicine, international relations etc etc. Every field is ready for you to disrupt it. The hubris is astonishing.
- paulddraper 3y agoWhy doesn't _____ just ______? I've thought about this for only 2 minutes and it's already obvious.
- nyc_data_geek1 3y agoI would simply _____.
- tekla 3y agoI as an coder would ____
- mcguire 3y ago_____, _____, land value tax.
- paulddraper 3y agoUBI, _____, _____
- meepmorp 3y agoAnd the closely related I could write _______ in _______ days.
- svnt 3y agoClearly you’re not in the field or you’d know that ______ is actually better understood as _______, which means your question doesn’t even make sense.
- davidktr 3y agofull paper here: // deleted. Looks like my choice of an anonymous file hoster was inappropriate.
- malf 3y agoThis page tries to send expensive SMS messages.
- bagels 3y agoSite doesn't look legitimate. Risky click.
- bagels 3y agoresearchgate has it: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362183387_Knowledge_overconfidence_is_associated_with_anti-consensus_views_on_controversial_scientific_issues https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362183387_Knowledge... You can click on "Read Full Text" Also here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0038 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0038
- GMoromisato 3y agoI blame Carl Sagan[1]. Carl Sagan was the Martin Luther of science communication. He showed us how you could figure out the size of the Earth just by measuring shadows at noon. He showed a vessel full of gases creating the precursors of life with just a little electricity. He reduced the history of the universe to a 1 hour PBS show. In short, he made science understandable to anyone. But just as the Reformation led to faith-healing and megachurch preachers, Sagan's teachings made it seem as if anyone could be a scientist. As long as a chain of reasoning made sense to you, then it was true! Take something like whether the earth goes around the sun. Sagan showed how Mars sometimes moves backwards in the sky, and he implies that this can only happen in a heliocentric model. In reality, of course, you need much more evidence to come up with the correct model. It wasn't until Newton could predict orbits from simple equations that there was no longer any doubt. But watching Sagan you get the idea that if you can just come up with ONE piece of evidence for whatever you believe, then that's enough to prove it! This is why flat-earthers rely on meme-like "evidence" that takes effort to refute. In the end, it's a trade-off. Do you want people to just trust authority or do you want people to think for themselves? If we want the latter (which I think we do) then we have to put up with those who are wrong. ----- [1] I love Carl Sagan. He was a huge influence on me, and I think he benefited society, even if I think his teachings also (ironically) stoked some pseudoscience.
- itronitron 3y agoWhy call it pseudoscience? It's just science done poorly by someone doing science. We don't call a bad haircut a pseudo-haircut.
- paulddraper 3y agoSame as psuedostatistics. There are fundamental, objective principals. [1] Violate those, and it's not what it claims to be. A bad haircut doesn't claim to be something that it's not, and its goodness is subjective. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudostatistical https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudostatistical
- itronitron 3y ago
- nonrandomstring 3y agoI think lifespan plays an important part in this. I know a few aging scientists, some with extraordinary achievements, who having accumulated a lifetime of wisdom are finally entering the "We don't really know" phase about every question.
- next_xibalba 3y agoI am 100% guilty of this. I try to consistently remind myself that having read mostly pop-sci and the occasional abstract of a scientific paper does not in any way qualify me as either a scientist or even a knowledgeable non-scientist.
- koromak 3y ago"They don't know I watched a 20 minute video on relativity"
- quickthrower2 3y agoMeanwhile… everyone else aged 10000 years.
- itronitron 3y agoIf they want the research to "help inform science communication strategies" then make the article freely available.
- ObservingFuture 3y agoI only glanced at the paper, but I wonder how much of this is explained by just random chance? It looks like they used multiple choice quizzes to determine both knowledge in science and a propensity to respond "don't know" indicating confidence. Any "don't know" response was counted as an incorrect response, while a correct guess increased the participants "science knowledge". Thus, a willingness to guess something at random in the multiple choice test would both increase "science knowledge" as well as make the participant appear overconfident.
- moffkalast 3y agoSounds like your intermediate knowledge of the paper is resulting in an overconfident negative attitude :P
- read_if_gay_ 3y agooh irony
- cududa 3y agoWell yeah but that's where data modelling comes in.
- ObservingFuture 3y agoI mean, the data modeling assumed people guessing were doing so completely at random without eliminating any options (In the section "Simulation"). If I'm looking at the right document, one question was about which city out of Chicago, New York, and LA have the greatest annual temperature range (accompanied with a plot). Almost all respondents said New York or Chicago, rather than LA or "All equal".
- cycomanic 3y agoI am not sure why we have all these comments about confidence/overconfidence of scientists and the limits of science. The article has some very different findings. The crucial paragraph from the abstract is: >We find a nonlinear relationship between knowledge and confidence, with overconfidence (the confidence gap) peaking at intermediate levels of actual scientific knowledge. These high-confidence/intermediate-knowledge groups also display the least positive attitudes towards science. It seems to that it is essentially a refinement of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It also matches some previous study I remember which found that science sceptisim and many conspiracy theories around science are most prevalent with certain engineering disciplines (I can't find the study right now, but will update with a link once I do). It is interesting that someone mentioned Sabine Hossenfelder as a positive example, because I find much of her recent content peddles to exactly the crowd who has intermediate knowledge of and very negative attitude toward science. In particular she often comments on topics where she herself has very little understanding (I know because I have seen it for topics where I am an expert) and just pushes a scepticism opinion without much understanding, but acting like she is an authority.
- mxmlnkn 3y ago> The article has some very different findings. The crucial paragraph from the abstract is: It's kinda funny how only the abstract is referred to when trying to paraphrase the findings of the paper. I would say that the abstract by itself is more like an opinion. The real hard data backing up the abstract, should be in the article. But, it can't even be faulted because this "science" is behind a pretty hefty paywall with 40$ for the full PDF and 10$ for a 48h rent. It's basically the same price as a full movie.
- cycomanic 3y agoThe abstract is not an opinion, it is a summary of the key methods and findings written by the authors. It is the perfect place to get a short quote to outline the main results of the paper. Now if we wanted to investigate the methods and results in detail, we certainly would have to read the full paper, however the main findings will not differ from what is in the abstract. You might find that the methods (and hence results) are not valid, and can come up with a detailed rebuttal, for that you certainly would need to read the full paper. However, I assumed here that the findings are valid, because even though I have access to the paper, this is well outside my area of expertise so I am not well placed to investigate the claims in detail and rather refrain from that.
- hnthrowaway0328 3y agoFrom my personal experience (thus does not have statistical significance), it's not the amount of knowledge, but the position. Teachers/professors are a group of people that I interact frequently with (both my parents and parents of my friends are university professors/lecturers), and it just happens that the ones that I know the most are all overconfidence. Basically they think they know everything, to the point of educating the doctors about medicines when they are in the hospital (as patients). I don't know what got them into this but I found the arrogance distasteful. Maybe it's in the culture though. Back in the day teachers were respected and the relationship between teachers and students are somewhat closer to father-children than customer-merchant. Now time changes but old habits stay hard.
- FactualOrion 3y agoWhat do you mean by educating the doctors about medicines? I've seen people without degrees advocate for themselves as patients and be more knowledgeable about certain medications and treatments than doctors or nurses were.
- hnthrowaway0328 3y agoLike "you don't know as much as I do, I Googled a page and it says..." type. No they definitely know very little about the stuffs. And I personally heard and saw they tried to persuade OTHER patients, of different symptoms to listen to their "theories".
- slt2021 3y agoALL patients with access to Internet are like that. now with chatGPT there will be more people like that
- ramraj07 3y agoFor every 5 “type” People you mention there’s 1 common person who really does spend the time doing their research and likely knows more about the drug than the doctor in some ways (typically they just lack the context of interactions and side effects). A good doctor will listen to what the patient says and then discuss with them what they think with an open mind. Good doctors are rare. Especially nowadays with all this arrogance that they know everything as you say.
- xamuel 3y agoI feel like this has been part of the latent background memetic knowledgebase for many years now: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit/photos/ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit/photos/
- threeseed 3y agoI can imagine it's not just restricted to scientific knowledge. And having met many of these types of people they all seem to share one trait: definitiveness. Everything is black/white and there is always a "right" answer or approach where as people with little knowledge and those who are experts tend to be nuanced and flexible.
- karaterobot 3y agoI'm 100% guilty of this. I try not to be, but hey. There's different levels: 1. The guy who reads the title of the journal article. 2. The guy who reads the abstract of the journal article. 3. The guy who reads the text of the article. 4. The guy who's read all the other significant research in the field and can put it in context alongside their own personal experience as a practitioner. I'm #2, and I strive to be #3. It's really hard to be #4, especially for more than one domain.
- not_enoch_wise 3y agoThat’s why I skip even reading the title, and get right to mocking other commenters.
- jrflowers 3y agoA true Posting Elemental needs no context to ply their trade
- wolverine876 3y ago> Posting Elemental Is that a thing or did you make it up?
- jrflowers 3y agoMade it up
- wolverine876 3y agoIt should be a thing. Thanks.
- quickthrower2 3y ago#2.5 someone who lets Karpathy explain it all :-)
- antisthenes 3y ago
- gumby 3y agoI think this is also a root of science denialism (e.g. anti-vaxxers). I have some antivax family, and the root of their opinion is that the scientists changed their advice as the pandemic developed! My theory is that in primary and high schools, science is taught as a series of immutable "facts". You get tested on remembering them, and when you do an "experiment" you get marked down if your reading of the litmus paper isn't 4. No sense of doubt, and no exposure to the epistemic boundaries to controleld trials, measurements, etc. If your takeaway is that scientists uncover and explain immutable facts, hearing them say one thing in January and another in June can in fact shake your beliefs in these scientists.
- dboreham 3y agoDoubtful it was anything so logical. Humans like to believe magic, and are very easy to manipulate.
- enjeyw 3y agoIn highschool I was lucky enough to join a program run by the CSIRO (Australia's Government funded scientific research body), where students would assist scientists on experiments they were conducting. I was tasked with measuring the water resistance of a proposed environmentally friendly paper coating. I asked my supervising scientist what numbers I should expect to get back from the experiment. I distinctly remember my surprise and thrill when he looked at me and said "I have no idea, that's why you're running the experiment". It was such a new concept to me! A scientific experiment where the correct answer wasn't written in a teacher's lesson guide, or even known to anyone!
- bratgpttamer 3y agoThis has been my experience, too, as well as people who understood The Science perfectly and that the authorities were just taking a best guess early on, which set them further against any kind of mandate. (Mostly older, conservative physicians with an "it'll be fine" attitude) The Science didn't change that much (viz: masks in healthcare since forever), but the flip-flopping with messages ("don't horde masks; they won't save you!", "wait, no - everyone needs a mask!"), which was really less about The Science than about different concerns (mask effectiveness, availability) were just the "I told you so" they were looking for.
- cassac 3y agoIntermediate [insert topic here] knowledge associated with overconfidence and negative attitudes. Topics: Science, Sports, Cooking, Driving, Programming… literally anything. I didn’t need a study to know this.
- quickthrower2 3y agoIt this the B swimming lane thing again?
- cassac 3y agoI do not know the reference. Is it that people claim the middle lanes are faster? But I do know that a lot of people across a lot of topics over estimate their ability because they don’t know what they don’t know. Science as a topic isn’t special in this regard. Jr devs are great examples. Your code is garbage and I am brilliant, just let me change this thing here and OH MY THE SYSTEM IS BROKE PLEASE HELP ME! Intermediate knowledge and negative attitudes.
- quickthrower2 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37359250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37359250 B lane swimmers are less friendly than A,C, and D at least anecdotally
- not_enoch_wise 3y agoExactly why I developed advanced sci knowledge, so my narcissistic confidence and anti-social attitude can be defended!
- bratgpttamer 3y ago> We find a nonlinear relationship between knowledge and confidence, with overconfidence (the confidence gap) peaking at intermediate levels of actual scientific knowledge. Dunning-Kruger isn't real. Dunning-Kruger isn't real. Dunning-Kruger isn't real.
- mcpackieh 3y agoIs that a mantra?
- Jensson 3y agoIt is the same result, just that they added the "unskilled" category. People who never drove a car will rank themselves as the worst drivers, and people who are experts rank themselves highly, so the most overconfident are those who can drive, but drives poorly, ie "intermediate skilled" relative the whole population.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- p0w3n3d 3y agoI've met both overconfident PhD holders and intermediate sci knowledge "flat-earthers" (conspiracy theory propagationists). Both are really hard to talk to, and both one couldn't convince they are wrong. I observed both being wrong. And meanwhile some of conspiracy theories became true... It's really hard to by sure of anything these days
- gobdovan 3y agoCould you provide examples of conspiracies you knew were wrong and became true?
- scotty79 3y agoInteresting. I think I've seen a research that when it came to covid, both uneducated and highly educated were making the wrong decisions more often. Sweet spot was around master's degree. Those people knew enough to know that they don't know enough to wing it themselves and deferred to expert opinion. Both under and overeducated thought they know better.
- pickingdinner 3y agoOr maybe those overconfident with negative attitudes resort to intermediate scientific knowledge? And aren't there humble optimists with intermediate sci knowledge? Maybe there just aren't enough humble optimists?
- dav_Oz 3y agoOnce the activation energy can be maintained (basic skill and consistency) the learning curve is the steepest at the beginning of any given field; the setbacks are still rare and surmountable (and just mostly add to the confidence). But the human mind is only able to suffer a finite amount of beating and at one point your perceived competence level will collapse dramatically, overcorrecting in the opposite direction. However, the reward structure of overconfidence can be used to maintain the momentum and once you hit the hard wall of insurmountable incompetence congratulate yourself that you actually walked the path of knowing practically nothing. It's the hardest thing to fully admit one's own ignorance and easy to see all around you, it's only when the giant rationalization machine buzzing inside is finally fully exhausted; for a brief moment the crushing vastness of the unknown pours in. So in a way overconfidence is just unused fuel. Use it wisely.
- 6kVShitPost 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gobdovan 3y agoMaybe that's why all the major materials on climate change I find are sociological, focusing on people's perception on it and on agreement between experts rather than the actual subject - It's so I don't get intermediate knowledge and become skeptical to my own dismay.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoThis shall be henceforth known as "The Dunning-Kruger paper". ;) Certainly, overconfidence and negative attitudes cloud public debate and popularization of conclusions. I've unfortunately come across narcissistic CEO/VC types who believe they have "all" of the answers, when instead they may have a corner of the Rosetta stone or a piece of lint. STEM knowledge must be tempered with data and supported conclusions over non-experimental biases. The larger issues are behavioral pathologies when people appear to believe they have a superior special monopoly on knowledge, experience, or being. Another pathology is anti-intellectualism, which runs deep in America.
- atleastoptimal 3y ago[flagged]
- slackfan 3y agoMay we all remember that the we can only know that we know nothing.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- frankreyes 3y agoDunning Kruger Effect, one more time.
- mimd 3y agoWell, nature apparently won't publish complex articles on topics for reasons, thus causing these issues of "intermediate" science knowledge. I wonder what was cut out to get this paper through.