The Defective Dunning-Kruger Effect
by Cowboy Bob Sorensen, edited for clarity 2 November 2021
This material should come in handy — especially the featured article linked below. When defending Darwin, The Mighty Atheist™ online is reflexively confrontational. The content that put a burr under his saddle is not dealt with adequately, however.
Although many who have Atheism Spectrum Disorder insist that they love science and want extraordinary evidence from creationists (which they promptly ignore), many accept internet parlance when it suits their purposes. We know that ridicule is usually their first course of action. (A newer trick on socialist media is when they have been refuted, caught lying, or whatever, is to simply use a laughing emoji. That does not make them any less defeated.) Let's look at some other tricks.
There are several common tactics that are used in their efforts to dehumanize Christians and creationists. (Do not expect civility from a misotheist, because that indicates you are a person.) Their ad hominem attacks involve "Poe's Law", "projection", and the Dunning-Kruger effect.
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| Partially made at ImgFlip, plus a great deal of editing |
Calling someone a "Poe" is an ad hominem. It's based on something called "Poe's Law", where Nathan Poe indicated that an extremist view ("extremist" is usually a subjective interpretation) cannot be distinguished from parody. (Has Poe ever written anything up in peer-reviewed scientific journals?) To refer to someone as a "Poe" is a way of saying that they are being supposititious. This assertion is convenient for the accuser and his cronies for dodging rational discussion.
Perhaps you've given examples of how atheopaths are vicious and bigoted. The reaction may be to say, "Boy, you sure are projecting! Haw, haw, haw!" They often say that projection is typical of Christians and creationists. Although Siggy Freud has been largely discredited, some of his ideas persist. One of these is the idea that people project their dissatisfaction with themselves onto other people or objects. I reckon that when someone claims that another is projecting, they are practicing psychology without a license and doing it improperly (not seeing a patient in a clinical setting). This, too, is simply a sneaky ad hominem meant to put the other person on the defensive as well as to avoid the topic at hand.
When David Dunning and Justin Kruger came up with their "effect", many in the public latched onto it as a way of saying that someone doesn't know as much as they think they know. The "effect" supposedly is that people are unskilled or incompetent, and this can be detected through high confidence and bravado. Angry atheists target a Christian by saying, "He is a prime example of the Dunning Kruger effect", but this is another ad hominem and a cheap dodge.
Ironically, when creationists point out that Darwin's disciples on the internet do not know as much about science as they pretend despite their arrogance, which should imply that they are exhibiting the D&K. However, we are often right — they get upset when we correct them regarding science and their own mythology.
The kicker here is that David and Justin had it wrong.
The peer review process has many major faults, including passing and publishing fake papers. Not only is this news about the effect a shining example of the reproducibility crisis in peer review, but it also shows how the secular psychology industry needs reforming. That is more true than they know, because evolution-based mind science does not get to the real problems. Repentance and forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Creator is the true solution.
Occasionally CEH’s Twitter feed gets responses from atheists and evolutionists appealing to the “Dunning-Kruger Effect.” This refers to the conclusion of a psychological survey done by Dunning and Kruger in 1999 that supposedly proved that confidence in a subject is inversely proportional to knowledge about it: i.e., ignorant people show the most bravado when talking about things they have no expertise in. Our attackers think to undermine our critique of Darwinism by this meme, implying, “You don’t understand evolution.” Well, the joke is on them.
Read the rest at "How to Turn Dunning-Kruger Inside Out". Again, I suggest you save the link to this article so you can have the resources. And Christians? If you're using the Dunning-Kruger effect to take someone down, stop. It is not honoring to God. You savvy that?