This is so speculative. I think the first step in determining why some people believe they are much more competent than they really are would be to interview them on how they came to believe it.
I think the fact that the author thinks this is unnecessary and that he can determine the cause of this phenomenon without this sort of empirical research indicates he believes he is better at understanding how one goes about determining human psychology than he really is.
"probably" according to what? Just producing a possible decomposition of a graph and arbitrarily assigning meaning to the components is rationalization, not empirical inquiry.
Dunning Kruger is just people thinking they're more average than they actually are. Which leads to below average people overrating and above average people underrating themselves.
Which is fair, if somebody asked me how good a driver I was, I would say I'm not particularly good, but I don't really get into accidents either so about average, which might or might not be true.
Good article. I particularly like the line, "early exposure to experts reduces delusional confidence", which is very true. It helps prevent a flawed Occam’s razor mindset, where people mistake the simplest visible explanation for the correct one.
Though probably not the best title as more about "Mount Stupid", than Dunning-Kruger.
"It’s worth noting that the 'Dunning-Kruger curve' never appeared in the original paper and is basically a meme based on a misunderstanding(?) of the effect. Nevertheless, it resonates with a lot of people."
I think the fact that the author thinks this is unnecessary and that he can determine the cause of this phenomenon without this sort of empirical research indicates he believes he is better at understanding how one goes about determining human psychology than he really is.