Following up on an Effect

[krpalmer]

Not that long after wondering if there might be problems with tossing around the term "Dunning-Kruger effect," I ran into that effect being mentioned in a book I was already reading, Robert Burton's A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind. (That title did get me wondering if some would expect "just" a treatise on materialism, but the book seemed more subtle than that to me in that, while it in no way tried to suggest "any mystery demands mysticism," it discussed modern neuroscience while questioning whether we can yet go from what we can detect of brain function using scanning equipment to conclude "the mind can explain itself," much less that minds are predictable.) Burton commented that "there's no point in name-calling; after all, none of us can be certain that we are not one of the affected." Again, it's perhaps because I saw the effect twice invoked against people I'd be ready enough to suppose aren't questioning their own conclusions enough that I'm willing to be humble, even if it's only "making a show of it."

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