@philosophyminis: About 25 years ago, the psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger ran a series of experiments to reveal something strange: people who know the least often have the most confidence in their abilities. This has come to be known as the "Dunning–Kruger effect." In short, if you're incompetent, you lack the skills you need to recognise your own competence, and so you overestimate your abilities. You think you're great when you're not. But what's less commonly known is the opposite, known as the "reverse Dunning–Kruger effect." This is when you become truly competent. It's when you research, you study, and you put in the hard hours, and you become acutely aware of how little you know. Socrates was said to be the wisest man in Greece because he recognised just how little he knew. If you speak to any expert or professor in their field, you'll notice how nuanced and uncertain their language is, whereas those who know very little are often very confident in what they say. You see this every day in online debates, where the loudest voices are often the least informed, and people with real knowledge hedge their statements, qualify their terms, and admit uncertainty. Bertrand Russell once said that "the trouble with the world is that the stupid are so cocksure, and the intelligent are so full of doubt." The danger is that modern society risks rewarding confidence rather than competence. We mistake the loudest voices for the best voices. But of course, confidence is not competence, and if somebody is walking confidently and loudly towards a cliff's edge, it's better to follow somebody who knows where they're going.

Jonny Thomson

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Region: GB

Thursday 14 August 2025 14:00:00 GMT