Sphere Of Ignorance

Why stupid people think they’re smart, and how we all can gradually become less blinkered

Image credit: Musée Rodin

I’ve been pondering a lot recently on the Dunning-Kruger effect. These two researchers are famous for investigating an interesting human phenomenon: the less someone knows about something, the more competent they believe themselves to be.

This is why the average driver, who objectively speaking is low-skilled and clueless, imagines themselves to be “above average” in their abilities. It’s why ignorant people think they understand the events of the day. It’s why we all think our baseless opinions and ill-understood snippets are a firm intellectual foundation beneath our metaphorical feet.

Since my earliest years I’ve been an oddity: insatiably curious about nearly every aspect of life. I quickly became a voracious reader and typically still read a couple of books per week. Not airport novels, but serious books about serious subjects. Over the course of five decades I’ve learned a great deal about economics, classical, relativistic, and quantum physics, cosmology, astrophysics, chemistry, cellular biology, biomechanics, bioenergetics, evolution, psychology, mechanics, evolutionary psychology, history, geology, statistics, and experimental design. As a result, I’m acutely aware of how provisional and incomplete our…