[eru]

> [...] the Internet lets people indulge in a Dunning-Kruger situation the likes of which humanity has never seen.

While we are at it, that infamous Dunning-Kruger study showed didn't even claim what people like to pretend it claimed. In addition the more nuanced claim they did make is not supported by the evidence they collected and presented in their paper. (Their statistics are pretty much useless, and as with any social science study, it has a small 'n' and it doesn't replicate.)

But the mythology 'Dunning-Kruger effect' is too good to pass up in Internet discussions, so it survives as a meme.

[killjoywashere]

I didn't know the names of Dunning or Kruger. I was a medical student who surveyed my classmates on their study habits and also asked them which quintile of the class they believed they stood in. My response rate was high enough that it was impossible to believe so few people from the bottom quintile had responded, and the upper 2 and 3 quintiles were impossibly overpopulated. That's how I learned about the effect. I didn't learn about Dunning and Kruger for several years after that, but when I did, oh boy, did the lights come one.

So, the current fashion of denouncing Dunning and Kruger doesn't jive with me. It was too obvious to discount and I had no idea of the concept when I saw it my own data. I think the misunderstanding has to do with the idea that it's about dumb people being dumb. It's about all of us. We all get it wrong. Even the smart ones. Paradoxically, the smart ones just get it wrong in the less desirable direction.

I think that academic fashionistas may be too clever by half here. Unless you have original data to back up a claim, the internet points aren't worth it. Focus on getting things right.