“People tend to hold overly favourable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability…”

Start of summary of the seminal paper by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999 Vol. 7 # 6

“A remarkable quirk of our current moment in history is how hard people work to assure themselves and others that those they disagree with have no valid point – nor even a perspective of their own. Ever since the October 7 attacks on Israel last year, I’ve tried my best to adhere to a very simple rule: my time and energy are finite. I have demands upon both. I’m not going to spend a single moment of time or calorie of energy trying to change anyone’s mind about the situation in the Middle East. I’m not going to argue or reply to anyone who disagrees with me, beyond a polite acknowledgment. There is simply no value for me in a debate. That being said, I have been genuinely surprised over these last almost 12 months by how little even Israel’s many harsh critics seem to value understanding the Israeli perspective.”

Matt Gurney on The Line October 3, 2024 [in places frankly he flirts with relativism, but you can understand a differing point of view without succumbing to mental or moral paralysis]

In my latest Epoch Times column I suggest we could make party platforms less preposterous and ephemeral by insisting that the politicians explain to us what practical obstacles they see to implementing their focus-grouped visions.

“Francis Bacon's acute methodological dictum: ‘Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.’”

Thomas S. Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition

“Overall, the results showed that incompetence is even worse than it appears to be and forms a sort of holy trinity of cluelessness. The incompetent don’t perform up to speed; don’t recognize their own lack of competence; and don’t even recognize the competence of other people.”

A Guardian summary of the seminal Justin Kruger and David Dunning study Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing ones own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments, quoted by Mike Jenkinson in the Ottawa Sun May 31, 2004

“the scientist who looks at a swinging stone can have no experience that is in principle more elementary than seeing a pendulum. The alternative is not some hypothetical ‘fixed’ vision, but vision through another paradigm, one which makes the swinging stone something else.”

Thomas S. Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition

In my latest Epoch Times column I say instead of worrying about polls asking whether we think the decline in trust might mysteriously reverse itself, we should concentrate on reversing it by making sure we’re trustworthy. I know it sounds weird but it just might work.

“I got an invitation from Carleton University’s College of the Humanities and College Anniversary Committee to a 10th anniversary celebration with a lecture from professor Roy Mottahedeh of Harvard on ‘Pluralism in Non-Western Traditions: the Case of Islam’ which added (generically) ‘Your presence will enrich this momentous occasion for us.’ And I thought ‘Sorry, I’m having my leg pulled that night.’”

One of mine, from September 15, 2006