Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues

[swansont]

Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0038

Recently, evidence has emerged, suggesting a potentially important revision to models of the relationship between knowledge and anti-science attitudes: Those with the most extreme anti-consensus views may be the least likely to apprehend the gaps in their knowledge

_{Probably comes as no surprise to folks here, encountering people with “alternative” views on science.} 

_{Mismatches between what individuals actually know (“objective knowledge”) and subjective knowledge are not uncommon (31). People tend to be bad at evaluating how much they know, thinking they understand even simple objects much better than they actually do (32). This is why self-reported understanding decreases after people try to generate mechanistic explanations, and why novices are poorer judges of their talents than experts}

 

 

[MigL]

To be fair, most people don't know what they don't know.
( do I sound like D Rumsfeld ? 😀 )

It is when they insist that their limited knowledge some how gives them greater insight, as if the ones who actually do have knowledge have been brainwashed, that the problems begin.

[Phi for All]

1 minute ago, MigL said:

To be fair, most people don't know what they don't know.
( do I sound like D Rumsfeld ? 😀 )

It is when they insist that their limited knowledge some how gives them greater insight, as if the ones who actually do have knowledge have been brainwashed, that the problems begin.

The maths misunderstanding comes to mind. "I came up with an intuitive idea that makes perfect sense and solves all the problems of the universe, now someone else should do the math!"

[CharonY]

4 hours ago, MigL said:

To be fair, most people don't know what they don't know.

This sounds like a variant of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It works best in conjunction with an erosion in trust of actual experts (or oversaturation in media of folks who claim to be "experts").

[Ken Fabian]

Seems kind of obvious; those that reject mainstream knowledge will overrate the validity of the alternatives that appear to prove mainstream is wrong, which becomes "proof, Proof!" that there is a conspiracy. Being mainstream becomes a principle reason to doubt something. Dunning and Kruger could add that as a corollary if it isn't already.

[Intoscience]

12 hours ago, Phi for All said:

The maths misunderstanding comes to mind. "I came up with an intuitive idea that makes perfect sense and solves all the problems of the universe, now someone else should do the math!"

Yeah, I think its the lack of understanding of why the math is important. Some people assume they can produce scientific models based purely on idea. They are either ignorant to, or choose to be so, the fact that theories require verification through experiment and prediction. 

I have plenty of ideas and personal theories about many things but they are and will remain just that, unless someone smarter than me comes up independently with something similar and a verifiable model to prove it. However, I don't ever hold out much hope or expect such, since with my limited knowledge I'm sure most if not all of my ideas would prove to be easily falsifiable to begin with, by experts in the scientific community .    

[joigus]

Yes, it has all the hallmarks of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I wonder whether there could be a survival component to this cognitive bias, as the effect is so common.

After all, a modern scientist can afford months of agonizing about whether they got it right. Under more stringent survival conditions, being self-assertive no matter what may have played a role in decision-taking.

[dimreepr]

18 hours ago, swansont said:

Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0038

Recently, evidence has emerged, suggesting a potentially important revision to models of the relationship between knowledge and anti-science attitudes: Those with the most extreme anti-consensus views may be the least likely to apprehend the gaps in their knowledge

_{Probably comes as no surprise to folks here, encountering people with “alternative” views on science.} 

_{Mismatches between what individuals actually know (“objective knowledge”) and subjective knowledge are not uncommon (31). People tend to be bad at evaluating how much they know, thinking they understand even simple objects much better than they actually do (32). This is why self-reported understanding decreases after people try to generate mechanistic explanations, and why novices are poorer judges of their talents than experts}

 

 

Strikes me as a double edged sword "we know this to be true" is assuming that your teaching will always be true...

[Phi for All]

5 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Yeah, I think its the lack of understanding of why the math is important.

It's also because it assumes people who can speak maths fluently haven't already done the calculations in their heads and dismissed the idea as unphysical or unworkable. And the irony is, if the mathematician took the time to show how the math disproves the idea, the overconfident person wouldn't understand it anyway. 

[swansont]

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Strikes me as a double edged sword "we know this to be true" is assuming that your teaching will always be true...

Science tries to go with the best explanation given current understanding, and that understanding is generally tested, pretty much continually. We update when warranted.

It's a matter of whether you are assessing your understanding, and as the article points out, you can do this with explanations of how things work. You tend to run into trouble explaining things when there are gaps in your understanding, and that gets even more scrutiny when people are asking questions, and pointing out when the explanations don't make sense. 

Then it's a matter of admitting to the gap, or stubbornly insisting that contradictions one has generated don't pose a problem, often accompanied by the waving of hands and sometimes heated responses. This gets amplified when one has an emotional attachment, because it is a pet theory that's been raised from a pup.

[MigL]

Would be interesting to know if any of the people you've banned over the years, took part in the mentioned study, Swansont 😄 .

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Would be interesting to know if any of the people you've banned over the years, took part in the mentioned study, Swansont 😄 .

I don't know about that, but I did see a thread last year on another science discussion forum where three of our old crackpots (I recognized the names but can't recall them now) were expounding on an idea one of them had stitched together with guesswork, wild hairs, and thin ice. Talk about clusterfuck! It was just those three, and they each had differing "theories" about why relativity is wrong, and none of them could explain it to the others, just like they couldn't explain it to us. It ended up looking like a word salad food fight, and the only thing they could agree on was how wrong Einstein was. 

[Intoscience]

9 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Talk about clusterfuck! It was just those three, and they each had differing "theories" about why relativity is wrong, and none of them could explain it to the others, just like they couldn't explain it to us. It ended up looking like a word salad food fight, and the only thing they could agree on was how wrong Einstein was. 

Why are so many people insistent on stating Einstein being wrong? I never understand this.  Interesting that all these crackpots over the past 100 years have not yet produced a testable theory that shows "the flaw/s" in SR & GR. I don't know the detailed workings of relativity but I know enough to grasp the basic ideas & principles and they make perfect sense to me.

I guess maybe its the difficulty in resolving the relationship between quantum gravity and GR why so many people throw their arms up proclaiming Einstein to be wrong, even though the vast majority who do so haven't a clue on either theory in the first place. 

 

16 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Strikes me as a double edged sword "we know this to be true" is assuming that your teaching will always be true...

Depends on your point of view, however I believe that if something is objectively testable and the results predictable & repeatable in all experiments, then one and maybe all can agree at that time that that something is "true".  You may however improve on the detail and discover that the truth you have established previously has evolved since.

For example Newton formulated his theory of gravity and his theory states that masses attract each other, he developed a mathematical model to prove this and this model, the force of gravity, still holds truth even today. Einstein came along and showed that although masses are "attracted" to each other the reason they do is down to the geometry of spacetime. He produced a mathematical model to prove this which still holds true to this day. 

Obviously this all depends on you definition of "true" but I think when teaching you can only go off what you currently know to be true based on verified experimental evidence.  

[Markus Hanke]

48 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

I guess maybe its the difficulty in resolving the relationship between quantum gravity and GR why so many people throw their arms up proclaiming Einstein to be wrong

That’s certainly a factor, but I suspect it’s mostly because a lot of people simply don’t have the ability to step outside the paradigm of what their sensory apparatus tells them about the world - which is essentially Newtonian. Thus, relativity and QM get rejected wholesale, because they “don’t make sense”.

Also, believing that you are smarter than a larger than life figure such as Einstein props up people’s egos.

[joigus]

Let's not forget the tall-poppy syndrome, which could be a factor in this too.

[Intoscience]

3 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Also, believing that you are smarter than a larger than life figure such as Einstein props up people’s egos

2 hours ago, joigus said:

Let's not forget the tall-poppy syndrome, which could be a factor in this too.

Absolutely, something you see often in all walks of life.

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Intoscience

[joigus]

25 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Absolutely, something you see often in all walks of life.

Markus had said it already. Thanks for elegantly pointing that out.  

 

[dimreepr]

17 hours ago, swansont said:

Science tries to go with the best explanation given current understanding, and that understanding is generally tested, pretty much continually. We update when warranted.

It's a matter of whether you are assessing your understanding, and as the article points out, you can do this with explanations of how things work. You tend to run into trouble explaining things when there are gaps in your understanding, and that gets even more scrutiny when people are asking questions, and pointing out when the explanations don't make sense. 

Then it's a matter of admitting to the gap, or stubbornly insisting that contradictions one has generated don't pose a problem, often accompanied by the waving of hands and sometimes heated responses. This gets amplified when one has an emotional attachment, because it is a pet theory that's been raised from a pup.

Indeed, you're preaching to the converted; as a disciple of science worshipping at the alter of TV, I was fooled into thinking I understood physics; my point is the disconnect of the recording/book without an appropriate teacher to explain why Brian Cox is fundamentally wrong, because most of the language of math, is not translatable into English.

SFN is the perfect forum to teach the most people through thread's like this, unfortunately not everyone can accept being wrong; there's bound to be some chaff.