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In what specific way did this post misrepresent or abuse the Dunning-Kruger concept? (Btw, the graph used is the same one used on the Wikipedia page for DK.) If you’re able to explain what you understand to be misrepresented, you can clear up the misconception for others — like me.


You can find the original paper here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12688660_Unskilled_...

It's a mere 15.5 pages of actual text.


So, instead of engaging in a discussion, and sharing your knowledge, with someone genuinely interested in learning from you— to improve upon the seeming misconception that bothers you — you link to paper and do nothing to correct your own pet peeve. Maybe consider that human life is finite, no person will ever be able to read or analyze everything, so you can help others when you have a piece of knowledge. Relevant - https://xkcd.com/1053/.


I don’t see that graph anywhere on the Wikipedia page

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...

I do see other graphs that tell a different story. Namely, that confidence is a monotonically increasing function of competence. If the data supports the idea that there is a valley of despair where confidence decreases as competence increases, I must be missing it.


Here, from Wikipedia:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dunning%E2%80%93Krug...

[edit: yes, it isn't currently on the Wiki page. On the other hand, I've seen that graph associated with that work before]


This is Commons, not a Wikipedia article. This image is incorrect, has been removed from the enwiki article, and is in fact explicitly tagged with a disputed factual accuracy notice.

Dunning-Kruger described a relationship between people's subjective opinion of their skill, and their performance on a test. They find the subjective curve is less steep than the objective one (low performers believe they are closer to the center than they really are, and so do top performers). There's no "peak of stupid", or anything else on that graph.

Repeating vague associations you've seen on the Internet before is how misinformation spreads.


I dispute nothing you write. Looking at the paper that graph is not within it.

Either my eyes skipped past it or that dispute notice was added after I linked the image. Regardless it belongs there.

I have previously seen a similarly shaped graph with Dunning-Kruger effect discussions many times, including on Wikipedia I believe. Now I'm curious what the source of the misrepresentation is since it does not appear quite derivable without artistic interpretation from the paper's data.

Regardless, I'm glad to update and add to my beliefs.

Please note that despite the implication that seems to be in your final statement, I did not mean to say the graph was correct, only that it is a graph commonly associated with the paper's message and thus understandable for the author to have used. From that, the use of it doesn't quite come from nowhere. I'm fact, I didn't really say much at all. While Wikipedia is the first search result, the Decision Lab is next which has a similar, even more distorted graph on their page [0] and yet is a fairly well esteemed organization.

Glad to improve my knowledge but that the graph is in common use is not misinformation even if the graph itself misinforms and isn't from the paper.

[0] https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect


I am likewise baffled by this. The entire "Mount Stupid" theory of Dunning-Kruger is wrong, and the blog shows that same wrong graph for me.

Maybe the author is running some kind of A/B test between the actual Dunning-Kruger paper graph and the fake one?




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