From Wikipedia:

>The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes.[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others"<

In other words, incompetent people don't know they're incompetent, while competent people don't think they're competent enough.

So what does this have to do with Mormonism? Mormons claim to KNOW things when, really, they only believe in those things, hope those things are real. If they really were wise and enlightened, they'd know that they don't know. Mormons claim they're better at being happy, staying married, raising families, being prosperous, and so on. But those are boasts that come from not being aware.

Consider that Mormonism was started by a guy who's a classic example of Dunning-Kruger effect. He claimed all sorts of superiority, but, really, he was a mess. Charismatic, but a mess, bumbling from one fuck-up to another until he got himself killed.

He was followed by another braggart. BY was more successful, but his inflated opinion of himself had him gladly pontificating on things he knew nothing about.

So it's no wonder Mormonism is full of people claiming to be more competent than they are. Several leaders from my past come to mind, like my MP, a seminary instructor and a certain bishop. The difference between these Mormons and, say, the asshats you encounter at work, is that the former believe they have super special magical intelligence from God -- which just further demonstrates the Dunning-Kruger effect.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2011 11:02AM by Stray Mutt.

something that was always promised in the temple, but never delivered. In a way, the temple itself seems to be an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's a big nothing, but Mormons think that it really is something, without ever being able to explain how the nothingness of it ever manages to amount to something--or anything--of real value. They believe that it's putting them on the inside track to blessings that the rest of will never get to enjoy, but when pressed as to how that really works, all they can do is slip into the "too sacred to talk about" mantra.

You're absolutely on target. They don't even know that they they don't know anything about the things that they claim to know so much about. They'll go on and on about how important the Celestial Kingdom is and how you have to do this and that to ensure your worthiness to go there. But if you ask them what it actually is, what goes on there, what types of interactions people have there and so on, they just go blank. They haven't a forkin' clue because their boy wonder prophet Joseph Smith never fleshed out the details for them to any meaningful degree.

Now THAT is good stuff! Absolutely brilliant!

Wow....I'm going to have to find more reading about this. It describes the mentality of my family to a tee.

Dunning–Kruger effect while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe:

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/

It also determines who you choose to be around, what books you decide to read, what movies you see, and what thoughts you allow yourself to think.

It's all group "BUBBLE THINK" that selectively reinforces itself.

It takes great courage to constantly question yourself and your information sources, but it's vital to be able to change when the evidence requires it.

This basic thinking came up in another thread:

If you took all the Mormon babies born in Salt Lake City and exchanged them with all the Catholic babies born in Rome, then raised them in devout respective homes, the majority of the Catholic children would grow up to be good Mormons, and the majority of the Mormon children would grow up to be good Catholics.

And if you were to ask this majority why they believe as they do, they will probably insist that it has been through careful choice, not social conditioning.*

The intellectually genuine ones are the ones who truly question themselves, then change, and then have the courage to keep questioning.

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* Try to imagine your favorite TBM friends or LDS leaders as equally devout Catholics -- Cardinal Oaks, Pope Thomas, Archbishop Packer? If they are "Bubble ThinK Mormons" now, there's a good chance they would be "Bubble Think Catholics" otherwise...

...the only difference is the accident of birth.

...that are available to people now.

I found the cross-cultural comparisons very interesting.

It can be argued that this "Bubble Think" may often be as true of many of US at RFM as it is with TBMs at church, but consider this:

How many of US read and listen to everything THEY have to say?

-- versus --

How many of THEM read and listen to everything WE have to say?

giving it every benefit of the doubt and actually desiring for it to be true. The only thing that countered that was the thought that truth was the ultimate goal--not belief. And truth had to be detected based on silly things like evidence, logic, common sense and so on.

The sad truth is that most devout"bubble think" Mormons are woefully ignorant about their own religion and its history.

Not only do they refuse to listen to everything WE have to say. They refuse to read and listen to everything the past leaders of their own religion have had to say. The funny irony is that they have to be fairly ignorant about their own faith tradition in order to believe in it. ;o)