Stilgherrian » intelligent design

Remember the Dunning-Kruger Effect!

Stilgherrian — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:39:04 +0000

I’ve just stumbled across something which helps explain a lot about the world: the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This is the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.

Manifestations include:

incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

This certainly applies to a news story I stumbled across today: Texas has appointed an anti-intellectual creationist as the head of their schools board. A school head who thinks education is a bad thing?

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Evolution disproved by peanut butter

Stilgherrian — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:04:00 +0000

Reason, apart from being one of the 3 Virian Virtues, is supposedly a God-given gift which separates us from the dumb animals. So why do people like Chuck Missler here, working “in God’s name”, abandon Reason so comprehensively when spouting shit like this in support of “Intelligent Design”?

Their mistake, of course, is to use the fallacious argument of personal ignorance: “I’m too stupid to figure out how evolution by natural selection might work, therefore it can’t be true.”

If the Nazis ever return to power, I vote for these people being first into the cattle trucks.

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Introducing: Intelligent Warming

Stilgherrian — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 04:25:13 +0000

The Truth about Global Climate Change… follow the link, all will be explained.