The Dunning-Kruger effect

He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise. Follow him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is ignorant. Teach him.

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.

This anonymous text is well known. It is generally presented as an Arab or Persian proverb, sometimes as a Chinese proverb, and is even mistakenly attributed to Confucius, as what is written in Analects 17:3 is different. The Dunning-Kruger effect, which refers to a study published in 1999 by these two authors in a journal of the American Psychological Association, could be considered as an experimental study on the first and last lines of the proverb.

To identify the effect that bears their name, Dunning and Kruger conducted and analyzed, with psychology students, a set of tests related to intellectual and social activities in fields such as humor, grammar and logic. They then asked the participants to self-evaluate, by answering the following three questions:

The ecological ignorance of ecologists

Ernst Haeckel, usually considered
the founder of Ecology

Ecology is the science that studies the mutual relationships between living beings that inhabit a given territory. Scientists who practice and research in this science are called ecologists.

As its name suggests (the -ism ending is very clear) ecologism is not a science, but an ideology. The people who practice this ideology (also called ecologists in English) are not scientists, but socio-political activists. Why did the creators of this ideology choose a name that can lead to confusion with that of a science, especially in English? No doubt they did it on purpose, to take advantage of the social prestige of science; so that ill-informed people would believe that ecologism is scientific; in short, to win votes.

Obviously there always are honorable exceptions, but it is not difficult to see that many socio-political ecologists are quite ignorant about the ecological science that they are supposed to apply in their practical policies, whenever they reach power positions. As a result, such policies are often counterproductive and even tragic.

Let us look at an example:

We know little about the world situation

Hans Rosling

Hans Rosling (1948-2017) was a Swedish doctor in medicine, who worked in the Karolinska Institute and investigated certain rare tropical diseases such as konzo, which proved to be a food contamination with cyanide. He was one of the founders of the Gapminder Foundation, which specializes in the analysis and dissemination of little-known data and in carrying out surveys to discover the degree of popular knowledge about economic, sociological, and highly topical worldwide issues.

In 2018 appeared his posthumous book, Factfulness, dedicated to explaining some of the discoveries of the Gapminder Foundation about the ignorance of many people on important issues, an ignorance which has spread a vision of reality very different from that provided by the data.

The scientific ignorance of politicians

Robert N. Proctor

Let’s look at a few recent quotes in the press about the scientific ignorance of politicians, as a sample of a new discipline called agnotology by Robert Proctor:

- Scientific American, March 31, 2014. Headline: The House of Representatives Commitee on Science is turning into a notional embarrassment.

- Ross Pomeroy, August 23, 2012. Headline: Politicians ignorant of science because we are. This article contains the assertion that the percentage of scientists (including medical fields) in the US House of Representatives is 6.9%, about the same as the proportion of scientists in the global population (6.4%).

- Nigel Morris, August 2, 2010, Independent (UK). Headline: Only scientist in Commons ‘alarmed’ at MPs ignorance. The text explains that Julian Huppert, a research biochemist who became the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge at the last election, said he was alarmed at the lack of scientific knowledge among colleagues.