Morris opens his piece with the story of attempted bank robber MacArthur Wheeler, who rubbed lemon juice on his face before entering the bank because he believed it would render him invisible to security cameras. "If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber," writes Morris, "perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity."

Now does that mean that knowing Im stupid actually makes me a genius? 😉

the original and very observant article:

+1
😉

it remonds me of the four stages of learning – which work really well for explaining mountain bikers as they progress from 'ur biek is saracing' to 'riding ged'

1. Unconscious Incompetence

The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.

2. Conscious Incompetence

Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.

3. Conscious Competence

The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.

4. Unconscious Competence

The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she may or may not be able teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

bassspine – your stage 4 was put quite eloquently in a karate film I saw as a kid – Dancing Mind, Thinking Body

Because your body knows what to do in any given situation your mind can focus on selecting the situation you want to be in.

he he, that's great. It's all too obvious in every day life too.

Lets say someone is, on a scale of 1 to 10, at cleverness level 5. He's smart enough to see that people on lower levels of cleverness are dumber than him but doesn't have the necessary to work out that someone on clever level 8 is a lot smarter. In fact, a level 8, 9 or 10 might actually seem like a bit of an idiot to him because everything that comes out of their mouths sounds like crap.

So if you can only really twig what people within say 2 levels each side of you are talking about and the law of averages tell us there must be some people on here who are well wide of the median, that explains why there are so many arguments on here when everyone is actually correct.

i don't get it why didn't the lemon juice work

Andy.
Aces. Good job I wasn,t drinking.

andy – maybe the heater over the door blew hot air on him and turned him visible again?

Socrates:
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

unfortunately the opposite seems to be the case for most of us….

Or as Buddha put it …

The fool who knows that he is a fool is for that very reason a wise man; the fool who thinks that he is wise is called a fool indeed.

that explains why there are so many arguments on here when everyone is actually correct.

excuse me ? I reckon overall correctness at 15% 🙁

I reckon overall correctness at 15%

well, simon, you do rather drag the overall correctness score of the place down a bit.

It was in the high 80's before you turned up 😉

In the theatre there is a saying: Amateurs rehearse until they get it right, Professionals rehearse until they can't get it wrong.

A bit like taking penalties, isn't it England?

It was in the high 80's before you turned up

that would require negative correctness, making you 230% right ?

excuse me ? I reckon overall correctness at 15%

Which places you in one of the extremes, either level 1 or level 10 cleverness….

that would require negative correctness, making you 230% right ?

I've never felt I'm at the 'right' end of the spectrum.

There are some people on here who believe they are 1000% right, though which tends to skew the results somewhat.

Which places you in one of the extremes, either level 1 or level 10 cleverness….

I already knew that 🙂

This is a metaphor for most IT projects, it seems.

The "Dunning-Kruger Effect". I like that. Shall be using it a lot.

Briliant – "5 feet 6 inches and about 270 pounds, McArthur Wheeler is an easily recognizable man"

Their original paper is linked as a pdf on the wikipedia article on Dunning-Kruger effect. Very readable and funny piece – how the incompetent lack metacognition.

This is great stuff.

Meanwhile, people with true knowledge tended to underestimate their competence. Roughly, participants who found tasks to be relatively easy erroneously assumed, to some extent, that the tasks must also be easy for others.

I think there's an additional factor there too. Smart people will often approach a task (set in a test), with the assumption that it's been devised by an absolute genius and is cleverly laden with subterfuge and mis-information so when asked something simple like "Will a plane on a conveyor belt take off?", they immediately assume that the trick to the question involves massive amounts of brainpower and wisdom to determine.

It's highly likely that for this reason, clever people may not provide the correct answer and hence get identified as being a bit thick.

clever people may not provide the correct answer and hence get identified as being a bit thick.

I'd like to think that's me but have a sneaking suspicion I may just be a bit thick.

Based on the above though, does it really matter if I'm a clever person who thinks they're thick or a thick person who knows they're thick? The only problem would be if I were a thick person who thought themselves clever.

I think I'm still young enough to know everything.

I have a very strong opinion of where TJ might fall in this spectrum. But does he? 😉

…thick person who knows they're thick?

That's the thing – they don't know!
You're obviously not thick enough. That you can actually think "am I thick?", marks you out as more intelligent than people like the bank robber.

Samuri, re the conveyor belt.. I got into an argument about that because I noticed the implications of a certain clause in the way the original sentence had been phrased that many had missed, which meant that the only answer to that specific wording of the problem was that the plane would NOT take off.. I tried to explain but everyone else thought I was just being dull…

Does raise a good point though.

Always wondered if they ever think "Dam, I'm stupid."

which meant that the only answer to that specific wording of the problem was that the plane would NOT take off..

I could never understand why anyone would think the conveyor belt made any difference to the plane 🙁

I think intelligent people also know where their knowledge ends and are aware of what they dont know rather than focusing on what they do know. As an example I understand evolution, DNA[even know its full name] and the double helix bond that watson and Crick discovered it and won the noble prize etc. That said I am not going to get a job in evolutionary biology anytime soon – probally cannot even label a cell anymore so I am also incredibly ignorant of the ENTIRE subject. Perhaps these days being a polymath means you know a tiny bit about lots of things and f@ck all in any real detail?
Wil be a nice high brow insult though to suggest that the person arguing with you is suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect

I could never understand why anyone would think the conveyor belt made any difference to the plane

It was that the specific (and careless) wording of the problem as it had been phrased on that occasion created an impossible hypothetical situation which by logical definition meant the plane could not take off.

In real life of course it bloody would.

I could never understand why anyone would think the conveyor belt made any difference to the plane

Try the bikeradar forum. About 90% on there don't believe you can put more force then your weight into a pedal stroke.

About 90% on there don't believe you can put more force then your weight into a pedal stroke.

but ignorance isn't the same as stupidity…

junkyard – I have found that quite depressing of late: knowing that no matter how hard I study something, Ill never really know everything about it unless I pick a tiny niche subject.

But surely sfb, something like that is using logic. And if you can't use logical thought to arrive at the correct conclusion, that must be stupidity, not ignorance? And even when I explained it to them, they still claimed I was wrong. Blind faith, and all that.

I could never understand why anyone would think the conveyor belt made any difference to the plane

It was that the specific (and careless) wording of the problem as it had been phrased on that occasion created an impossible hypothetical situation which by logical definition meant the plane could not take off.

In real life of course it bloody would.

This was precisely the point I was making but you were too thick to understand. 😉

Thicker people go 'well obviously the plane won't take off, it's simple' because they're used to dealing with easy problems, i.e. we need a hole in the road there or we need some code to do this.

Brighter people will assume there's a myriad of complications that are hidden amongst the nuances of the question because that's the sort of the problems they're used to dealing with. e.g. How do we stop all this oil escaping or how do we get this tumour out then?

So actually the plane/conveyor belt question is a intelligence seperator. If you instantly said 'it'll never take off' then you're probably a bit of a knuckle dragger. If you question the fine detail like me and molgrips did, then you're insanely clever. 😉

Not so samurai. If you're used to answering simple questions, and you answer a question simply, how is that different from if you're used to answering complex questions, and you answer a question complicatedly.

Perhaps its people who aren't used to answering questions at all, and then the ones who get it right are the clever ones, and the ones who get it wrong and the real idiots.

What about quesiton setters? Truly intelligent people, as not only do they need to know the question to ask, but also understand the position of the question on the diffculty spectrum and pitch it at the right level for the job. Talented folks.

But surely sfb, something like that is using logic. And if you can't use logical thought to arrive at the correct conclusion, that must be stupidity, not ignorance?

not necessarily, we all have areas of knowledge which are closed to us because we failed to develop the mental pathways, so for instance I'm good at seeing a 3D map of rides in my head but hopeless at keeping track of Fred's uncle's friend's sister etc. Many of those who haven't studied mechanics can't understand force/torque/acceleration at all…

Many of those who haven't studied mechanics can't understand force/torque/acceleration at all…

Yes, but we all live on earth, which happens to be in a part of the universe that the laws of physics are obeyed. When do ideas have to require a qualification in mechanics to understand? If someone thought when you let go of a ball in the air and it would stay there, they would be stupid, no?