Torn from the comment section of my own youtube channel.
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[SolarSolWaves writes:]
Yeah basically 95% of my observing of people referencing the Dunning Kruger effect is just like any other thought terminating cliche.
Examples include in discussions like, "I wonder why X person did Y action?" response: "Dunning Kruger effect" ( = discouraging curiosity / cognitive emapthy / true understanding).
Or often times people act like they mic‑dropping an reductio ad absurdum with the, "this argument is stupid dude you got the Dunning Kruger effect".
Regarding the stuff about people being competent enough to read, etc…
I think it starts with the fact that we intellectually trust way too much. When I was a kid, I genuinely thought medicine was basically “solved.” That’s how it was presented to us. The whole cultural vibe was: we know everything.
And then you actually get hit with a real medical issue that isn’t run‑of‑the‑mill, and suddenly you see what’s really up. Doctors aren’t curious, doctors don’t like saying “I don’t know,” so they default to “it’s psychological” or whatever. Boom, the illusions start breaking.
Anyway, seems like we instill that same blind trust into all of science (really, pop-scientific journalists). So when people read a headline, they assume it’s true. That’s where it begins. Instilled intellectual trust.
Then we grow older, values emerge, stiffen, etc... then it becomes about biases and what we want to be true. A headline is assumed correct if we like what it says. If we don’t like it, then suddenly we’re “critical thinkers” again... we read the article, try to debunk it, or just throw some generic phrases in the comments to dismiss it.
Then some people become anti-science and have a blind trust in the anti-science people.
Yesterday there was this awful study posted on Reddit about how “eating eggs actually improves your good cholesterol,” and it had tons of upvotes. So I’m like… okay, interesting, let me read this. I’m vegan, but not for health reasons. Fact: veganism is healthy. Is it the healthiest diet ever? I don’t know, I don’t care. Point is, I don’t feel attacked when evidence comes out that some animal product might be healthy. I’m open-minded. People smoke cigarettes. Veganism being the healthiest diet in the world isn't going to move it forward.
So I read the article... not the actual study, just one of those shitty website summaries (because that's what was linked / posted), and it took me maybe 30 seconds to see the massive flaw in the study design. […] [Details omitted.]
Simple shit. Yet the post had tons of upvotes, and the comments were like, “Yeah I eat 3 eggs a day, my LDL is fine.”
I dunno, it’s like, the average person is incompetent at reading scientific studies, but at the very least, why can’t journalists be competent? Why do we have journalists pumping out garbage like this? I know the answer, it’s rhetorical, but still, I feel like the solution has something to do with journalists and holding them accountable... fuck like uhh, in Mexico they have this new law where children's cereal cannot have colorful characters and avatars like Tony the Tiger and Captain Crunch on the boxes if it passes a sugar threshold. Boxes gotta be empty, ugly (like cigarette carton laws in Canada, except without the deathly images), or they can have the saturated graphic designs but only if its a low-sugar version of the cereal. Let's get some anti-click-bait anti-sensationalism laws going!!! Not sure if thats an idea worth taking too seriosuly, just thought of it now...
I have friends who can’t read scientific papers or evaluate methodology or statistics. I can’t expect them to. I don't think this is a run-of-the-mill skill, and I don’t think it ever could be. Most people don't have the time / cognitive energy left to. I'm lucky enough that I enjoy reading. Maybe I’m not giving people enough credit, but something about scientific journalism needs to change. I’ve made like seven Reddit comments in the past year debunking crap articles that people in the comments were eating up. One was pro-vegan but still a terrible study. One was about language sonority and humidity. One was about pole dancing being a mental-health miracle. A few more I can’t even remember.
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[And I reply:]
I'm surprised that you and I agree about so many things (we are in a minority within the vegan movement, you and I… and the vegan movement itself is a tiny minority to begin with) but it all comes down to a question of, "What now, what next?" I chose _NOT_ to spend my life debunking antidepressants, I chose _NOT_ to spend my life denouncing the excuses made for smoking marijuana, two examples that rely on similar pseudoscience, two examples that show the extent to which people who are ruining their lives with self-inflicted brain damage will self-righteously insist that you are morally evil for making them aware of this inconvenient truth. There is very little scientific complexity to carbon PPM measurements, and very little political complexity to the question of what must be done to redress them. The species, on the whole, is stuck in a cycle of living a lie, eventually dying for the sake of that lie. Alcoholism and environmentalism are one.
