"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."The trouble with this kind of quote is that the people who ought to be heeding it will be exactly the people who will just know that it applies to everyone else. This isnt just my opinion, or Russell's, but has been shown in an actual study (more accessable information here).
- Bertrand Russell, The Triumph Of Stupidity In Mortals And Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998, p28).
Another quote:
People tend to hold overly favorable 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 4 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. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of the participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)This post was pretty much stolen from Millard Fillmore's Bathtub.
3 comments:
"The trouble with this kind of quote is that the people who ought to be heeding it will be exactly the people who will just know that it applies to everyone else."
Well, that happens when you are sure about your cock.
I have no response to that.
Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.
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