Incompetence

[dimreepr]

I joined this forum because I thought I had a brilliant idea that should be shared with the science community. Sadly I was wrong but it did get me thinking, if I am unable to recognise my own incompetence, can anyone?If, for instance, a doctor miss' a diagnoses through lack of knowledge and is later correctly diagnosed. Would the doctor recognise his/her incompetence and seek the knowledge he/she lacks or would he/she simply shrug and say with a sheepish grin "oops missed that one" and carry on with the day. From what I have observed of human nature I would say the latter is most likely. In industry whistleblowing or flagging up incompetence is more likely to be met with hostility, than rewarded for the potential savings this act could make.

 

How much damage is this phenomena secretly doing to our society?

 

 

Edited January 7, 2012 by dimreepr

[John Cuthber]

I suspect it does quite a lot of damage.

Unfortunately, here in the UK the government is planning to make it worse by removing one of the mechanisms by which such errors are found and acted upon.

 

For example Mr Cameron says "You've got to look at the quantity of rules – and we're cutting them back; you've got to look at the way they're enforced – and we are making sure that is more reasonable; we're taking self-employed people out of whole classes of health and safety regulation.

"But the key about health and safety is not just the rules, the laws and regulations – it's also the culture of fear many businesses have about health and safety."

from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8994868/David-Cameron-vows-to-cut-back-health-and-safety-monster.html

 

This is after the the guy who wrote the report

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/lofstedt-report.pdf

that the same government commissioned said that "My overall conclusion is that there is no evidence for radically altering current health and safety legislation. This overwhelming view was expressed by a wide range of stakeholders including groups that represent employers. Furthermore there is evidence that work-related ill health and injury is itself a considerable burden on business (as well as a cost to society more generally) and that the regulatory regime offers vital protection to employees and the public."

 

I suspect that politicians are the last people to notice their own lack of ability.

Edited January 7, 2012 by John Cuthber

[dimreepr]

I suspect it does quite a lot of damage.

Unfortunately, here in the UK the government is planning to make it worse by removing one of the mechanisms by which such errors are found and acted upon.

 

For example Mr Cameron says "You've got to look at the quantity of rules – and we're cutting them back; you've got to look at the way they're enforced – and we are making sure that is more reasonable; we're taking self-employed people out of whole classes of health and safety regulation.

"But the key about health and safety is not just the rules, the laws and regulations – it's also the culture of fear many businesses have about health and safety."

from

http://www.telegraph...ty-monster.html

 

This is after the the guy who wrote the report

http://www.dwp.gov.u...tedt-report.pdf

that the same government commissioned said that "My overall conclusion is that there is no evidence for radically altering current health and safety legislation. This overwhelming view was expressed by a wide range of stakeholders including groups that represent employers. Furthermore there is evidence that work-related ill health and injury is itself a considerable burden on business (as well as a cost to society more generally) and that the regulatory regime offers vital protection to employees and the public."

 

I suspect that politicians are the last people to notice their own lack of ability.

 

I'm from England so I feel your pain...

[swansont]

People who are less competent are less able to assess their incompetence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

 

Of course, nobody is immune from fooling themselves.

[Phi for All]

Sadly I was wrong but it did get me thinking,

To me, This statement makes all the difference between normal human failing and incompetence. Failing at something doesn't make you incompetent; refusing to acknowledge the failure and learning nothing from it makes you incompetent. The fact that a failure made you introspective says a lot about your character, and is what learning is all about, imo.

 

There are a lot of people who think mistakes lessen their value as a person, and would rather risk covering them up rather than taking those mistakes on board and making them part of their learning experience. I think this does a lot of damage.

 

In industry whistleblowing or flagging up incompetence is more likely to be met with hostility, than rewarded for the potential savings this act could make.

Sadly, there are very few good systems in industry to properly handle mistakes that cost a company money, especially when unemployment is high. Science is usually pretty forgiving of mistakes (or wrong answers); that's how you gather data and it's just part of the process. As long as your mistakes aren't part of your methodology, and you properly acknowledge where you were in error, science is pretty forgiving.

[dimreepr]

People who are less competent are less able to assess their incompetence.

http://en.wikipedia....g–Kruger_effect

 

Of course, nobody is immune from fooling themselves.

 

 

Interesting read thank you