Ray Murray's Journal

The Dunning Kruger effect is a tendency to make systematic errors in judgment, knowledge and reasoning in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the problem solving ability to realize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore are hindered by illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, and are hindered by illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people.

This maybe why actual competence may weaken self-confidence: because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. The mistake of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the mistake of the highly competent stems from an error about others.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (Darwin)
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." (Yeats)

Dunning et al. cite a study that 94% of college professors rank their work as "above average" (relative to their peers), to underscore that the highly intelligent and informed are hardly exempt.

For instance, the Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions regardless of whether the information is valid. As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way.

For example, in reading about DOT 5 vs. Silicone Brake Fluid, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and recall have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), and belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false).

Some people show a confirmation bias because they are pragmatically assessing the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way. Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.

"...it is a habit of mankind ... to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy."
(Thucydides)

I know that most men, not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever, and capable of understanding the most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic problems,can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty, conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.
(Leo Tolstoy)

Conclusion: THINK before hitting the SEND key for your post. Ask yourself if your information and experience is, for the most part, as accurate as it possibly can be without injecting your personal biases, unless of course, your information is subjective in nature. However, if your information is pretty solid, then don t allow the over-confident and less competent Cyber Bullies detract from what you sincerely think is a valid point of view. Usually a Cyber Bully will resort to sarcasm and name-calling rather than attempt to refute the premise being offered by another responder. Even extending an apology to a Cyber Bully will only engender disdain and ridicule.

So when we make our posts in the MGE, we should remember that often our perceptions of our experiences and skill sets, and those of others, are flawed, especially when it involves repairing or restoring MGs, since we all know that it can t be an exact science if it involves MGs.

As a final note I would like to quote a very smart gentleman on this post: Mr. Steve Schultz and his 4 Rules for the Internet Forums:
1) You must have a thick skin to play;
2) Other people will have opinions. They will care about their opinions just as passionately as you care about yours.
3) Most everyone else does not care about your opinion as much as you do.
4) See rule number 1

This is not unique to the MGE boards, of course. I'm … an MG fan, and we pretty much always have a couple of guys that are put out and have "taken their ball and gone home" for a while after some spat …. The good thing is that they usually realize playing the game is more fun than sitting at home, and they come back. It's all in fun and enjoyment in the end and most realize that, although there are some bruised feelings along the way.

Now let's crack open an Old Speckled Hen and talk about oily bits!

Tahitiblue
Steve Shultz
Raleigh, USA
(Quoted with permission)

Thank you Steve,
Ray Murray
Velcro