Mockingbird
Well-known member
I have written on the Dunning-Kruger Effect for a while and looked at some of the literature on the research.
Something that is probably the most misunderstood fact about it is that we tend to overestimate our knowledge on topics which we are not experts in, especially if we have slight expertise or extremely high expertise.
People often misunderstand the Dunning-Kruger Effect and think it means stupid people overestimate their expertise. But it is related to knowledge, not stupidity.
Smart people fall prey to it very often.
I have seen experts in one field get treated as experts in separate unrelated fields and the media and public feed this.
Brian Dunning made some comments about Scientology that are in my opinion grossly inadequate to describe it as an expert and people who don't understand the difference between skepticism in general and cultic studies as a specific specialty won't understand that he is not an expert appropriate for being consulted on this topic.
He has an opinion but it is a profoundly uneducated opinion. Don't get me wrong, he got a lot right about Scientology but far from everything and his error is one many people who are experts in other fields also commit.
I think that his lack of education on cultic relationships and the dynamics of the cult leader and cult follower relationship in particular as well as the methods cults use to influence members and the state of mind cult members have while in the cult leave him unprepared to examine Scientology.
(He could have consulted many experienced cult experts on the subject. Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein and Traumatic Narcissism by Daniel Shaw together describe the cultic relationships, Cults In Our Midst by Margaret Singer and the eight criteria for thought reform by Robert Jay Lifton described the methods cults use to influence members and The Discipling Dilemma by Flavil Yeakley describes the effect that cults have on the minds of cult members)
It is kind of like a person who has not studied chemistry and the effects of combining different chemicals under various conditions trying to understand what happens with various substances being combined under different conditions of temperature, pressure and with varying degrees of force and only looking at the equations of Newton regarding force and motion.
More happens in chemistry and chemical reactions than what is described in one corner of physics. This doesn't invalidate physics, it means that the other subjects like chemistry help to give a more complete and accurate picture.
We can easily see that chemistry can help us to understand that dumping a strong acid on many substances under many conditions will lead to a reaction beyond what we would know if we just understood what the weight and force of the substances were. So, a physics expert SHOULD understand that understanding how real matter interacts with real matter isn't the same as understanding how some other types of matter will react in hypothetical situations.
They SHOULD understand it but won't always.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has also been asked about Scientology and rather than say that he is not an expert on cults he has made glib comments that in my opinion are inaccurate. Some of the media and public will treat his remarks as based on genuine expertise.
People make this mistake with all kinds of experts. I have seen many people who present articles as definitive evidence for scientific claims to end up dissecting the articles and finding that everyone involved in writing the article has no education on the topic at hand. With articles on very specific details regarding nuclear power we have articles by journalists and people who have doctorates in fields like oncology and psychiatry. That's right a psychiatrist and cancer doctor are evaluating the fine points of designing, financing and operating nuclear power plants and being promoted by journalists who are equally uneducated regarding nuclear power.
I have had to point this out when presenting articles by nuclear power safety experts and officials who worked in the nuclear industry. The public often latches onto articles that agree with whatever position fits their peer group with no regard for whether the authors are experts or if people who disagree are experts. They also don't evaluate the claims with skepticism and try to get the best evidence and arguments both for AND against their own position.
We have media that present fictional omnidisciplinary doctors who know all medical practices, nuclear physics, chemistry and can do everything any engineer or architect or scientist of any kind could ever do.
In reality very few people learn the equivalent of a medical doctor and a PhD in physics, probably less than one in several thousand and when we get to people who have four or more PhDs, the norm for a television doctor or smart person, it is probably exceptionally unlikely. You can find a few dozen or so but they are not Einstein combined with a master of every field of medicine and a master of chemical engineering and archaeology and fluent in thirty five languages.
Here is the Scientology video by Brian Dunning of Dunning-Kruger Effect fame at Skeptoid for com.
Something that is probably the most misunderstood fact about it is that we tend to overestimate our knowledge on topics which we are not experts in, especially if we have slight expertise or extremely high expertise.
People often misunderstand the Dunning-Kruger Effect and think it means stupid people overestimate their expertise. But it is related to knowledge, not stupidity.
Smart people fall prey to it very often.
I have seen experts in one field get treated as experts in separate unrelated fields and the media and public feed this.
Brian Dunning made some comments about Scientology that are in my opinion grossly inadequate to describe it as an expert and people who don't understand the difference between skepticism in general and cultic studies as a specific specialty won't understand that he is not an expert appropriate for being consulted on this topic.
He has an opinion but it is a profoundly uneducated opinion. Don't get me wrong, he got a lot right about Scientology but far from everything and his error is one many people who are experts in other fields also commit.
I think that his lack of education on cultic relationships and the dynamics of the cult leader and cult follower relationship in particular as well as the methods cults use to influence members and the state of mind cult members have while in the cult leave him unprepared to examine Scientology.
(He could have consulted many experienced cult experts on the subject. Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein and Traumatic Narcissism by Daniel Shaw together describe the cultic relationships, Cults In Our Midst by Margaret Singer and the eight criteria for thought reform by Robert Jay Lifton described the methods cults use to influence members and The Discipling Dilemma by Flavil Yeakley describes the effect that cults have on the minds of cult members)
It is kind of like a person who has not studied chemistry and the effects of combining different chemicals under various conditions trying to understand what happens with various substances being combined under different conditions of temperature, pressure and with varying degrees of force and only looking at the equations of Newton regarding force and motion.
More happens in chemistry and chemical reactions than what is described in one corner of physics. This doesn't invalidate physics, it means that the other subjects like chemistry help to give a more complete and accurate picture.
We can easily see that chemistry can help us to understand that dumping a strong acid on many substances under many conditions will lead to a reaction beyond what we would know if we just understood what the weight and force of the substances were. So, a physics expert SHOULD understand that understanding how real matter interacts with real matter isn't the same as understanding how some other types of matter will react in hypothetical situations.
They SHOULD understand it but won't always.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has also been asked about Scientology and rather than say that he is not an expert on cults he has made glib comments that in my opinion are inaccurate. Some of the media and public will treat his remarks as based on genuine expertise.
People make this mistake with all kinds of experts. I have seen many people who present articles as definitive evidence for scientific claims to end up dissecting the articles and finding that everyone involved in writing the article has no education on the topic at hand. With articles on very specific details regarding nuclear power we have articles by journalists and people who have doctorates in fields like oncology and psychiatry. That's right a psychiatrist and cancer doctor are evaluating the fine points of designing, financing and operating nuclear power plants and being promoted by journalists who are equally uneducated regarding nuclear power.
I have had to point this out when presenting articles by nuclear power safety experts and officials who worked in the nuclear industry. The public often latches onto articles that agree with whatever position fits their peer group with no regard for whether the authors are experts or if people who disagree are experts. They also don't evaluate the claims with skepticism and try to get the best evidence and arguments both for AND against their own position.
We have media that present fictional omnidisciplinary doctors who know all medical practices, nuclear physics, chemistry and can do everything any engineer or architect or scientist of any kind could ever do.
In reality very few people learn the equivalent of a medical doctor and a PhD in physics, probably less than one in several thousand and when we get to people who have four or more PhDs, the norm for a television doctor or smart person, it is probably exceptionally unlikely. You can find a few dozen or so but they are not Einstein combined with a master of every field of medicine and a master of chemical engineering and archaeology and fluent in thirty five languages.
Here is the Scientology video by Brian Dunning of Dunning-Kruger Effect fame at Skeptoid for com.
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