[rlpb]

> I often feel that engineers write these posts because they know that they themselves are good at their job...

The Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that almost certainly, some non-zero proportion engineers who have written this type of posts are not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

[custos]

While what you're saying is true, I think the dunning kruger effect has an inverse bell curve based on level of confidence vs knowledge.

High confidence low knowledge. Moderate confidance moderate knowledge High confidence high knowledge.

Of course that only applies to the things the expert knows like the back of his hand. There are things I am 100% confident I know, because I've done it thousands of times. Then there are some advanced things I still question if I truly understand because I've only successfully done it a few times.

Of course when I was younger, the things I'm 100% confident now I went through the phase of "oh I can do this super easy" to "holy crap this is harder than I thought" to "I've done this 1000's of times, I got this"

[rlpb]

> There are things I am 100% confident I know, because I've done it thousands of times.

If you've done thousands of job interviews (for example), does that make you an expert at job interviews? Or a terrible candidate?

Now: how many people who pass every job interview immediately subsequently write an article about questions to ask at a job interview?

[dahart]

Dunning Kruger is only valid for simple tasks. The study tested, for example, whether participants get a joke. The participants, btw, were all Cornell undergrads, NOT the general population.

The "Dunning Kruger effect" actually reverses and there's a negative correlation for highly skilled and highly knowledge-based tasks like "engineering".

http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-k....

"...some studies have shown that the asymmetry reported by Kruger and Dunning (i.e., the smaller discrepancy for high performers than for low performers) actually goes away, and even reverses, when the ability tests given to participants are very difficult."

So please don't treat Dunning Kruger as a way to claim anyone who's wrong or you disagree with is suffering from inflated confidence and lack of skill. Do note the potential for confirmation bias as well as inflated confidence in the very claim that others might be prone.

[ksk]

>The Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that almost certainly, some non-zero proportion engineers who have written this type of posts are not.

The effect can't suggest anything, you would have to test your own hypothesis on your own sample set of people writing those posts. Extrapolating from other studies on other sample sets used for completely different inquires is bad science.