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Today I learnt a new term that I wish I had known before. It can be applied to many competent and incompetent people I have come across in life:
The Dunning-Kruger effect.
Google it.
The following is all from Wikipedia:
"This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others."
Shakespeare: "The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole"
Darwin: "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
Confucius: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
Suddenly my confidence is very shaky! 
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Old 'proverb':
He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is simple; teach him.
He who knows and knows not he knows is asleep; wake him.
He who knows and knows he knows is wise; follow him.
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and
a noise annoys a noisy oyster, but a noisy noise annoys a noisy oyster more.
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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That's quite interesting, and that makes sense also. The more we learned about something, the more conscious we are of what we still ignore; I'm not sure a limit can be put on knowledge, at least a limit reachable by contemporary human brain.
Thanks a lot 
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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phil.o wrote: The more we learned about something, the more conscious we are of what we still ignore
Err...some people are conscious of that.
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I did not know that!
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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phil.o wrote: The more we learned about something, the more conscious we are of what we still ignore;
This is why I never revised for exams. It made me less confident as I started to realise how little I remembered.
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I went on a Trainer-training course twenty or more years ago, and they said the same thing. They give four stages, and training is designed to move you from one level to the next, and so on:
Unconscious incompetence: You don't know that you don't know how to do it.
Conscious incompetence: You know that you don't know how to do it.
Conscious competence: You know how to do it.
Unconscious competence: You don't have to think about how to do it.
And it's very common for someone with unconscious competence to assume that everybody else is the same, and have a lot of problems instructing people how to do it.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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When I went on my teacher training course they said the same thing (although in a less simple but clear way). I was having difficulty teaching at first because I knew so well a lot of the simple stuff that the stuff I was teaching was built upon that I assumed my students (and the entire world, in fact) must know this stuff, surely? They didn't always, not all of it anyway. Once I had mastered the art of assuming my students knew nothing, my teaching slowed down quite a bit in pace - but increased massively in effectiveness.
Getting the balance right between explaining every little thing and moving forward assuming they "got it" was the key.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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It's a skill - and it can be taught to a greater or lesser degree.
But it's a difficult job: you're always at risk of patronising people or confusing them! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: But it's a difficult job:
It is! Well done! You're completely right on this one!
OriginalGriff wrote: you're always at risk of patronising people
Oops!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Our trainer split the last step into two parts:
Unconscious competence - like level 1, and
Unconscious perfection - this is really after years and years of continuous practice.
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I went on a course like that once and I was certainly unconscious by the end, as for my competence I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.
veni bibi saltavi
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Quote: as for my competence
Depends on the gin consumption (there may be a bell curve there!)
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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These vocational training bores do love their little labels and check-boxes, which they think they can use in place of simple common sense, and/or to make it look as though they're not saying anything bad about anyone, but which most of all are designed to make they themselves look better than everyone else.
The miracle is that a few of the attendees, who, in general, are around thirty times smarter than the trainers, manage to stay awake.
Anyone can make up terms and ad-hoc definitions for them:
Scrofilageous baskertimper: Someone who knows bugger all about anything, but talks like he knows everything about everything, e.g. politicians, celebrities, and taxi drivers.
Pocklewidgeous abuntifier: Someone who realises that he hasn't got a clue what he's doing, so spends all his time talking about how incompetent other people are, rather than learning anything, e.g. Hell, we've all worked with at least one.
Bungericous flibbernapper: Someone who knows his job, but might as well be speaking a foreign language when he tries to explain it to other people, e.g. all too many developers, because of the incredible number and variety of specialisations in the field.
Vocational Trainer: An absolute genius who doesn't need to know how to do anything, because he can make knowledge leap into the minds of others without actually saying anything even remotely intelligent, e.g. Vocational Trainers. There are no other examples, because Vocational Trainers are the suprememost minds of the universe.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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+5
Also, please append from your source the appropriate genus and species for that special 'someone' who doesn't know anything but will listen to what you say and repeat it to you (and others) later on (even though they still haven't a clue).
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Damn! I forgot that one.
Maybe because they're so forgettable.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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And it is very common for someone with unconscious competence to be 'managed' by someone with unconscious incompetence.
And to have that person assume that what I do is simple and easy, since they know nothing about it that is *not* simple and *not* easy.
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I recognized the same thing when I was tutoring math at one of our campuses. I came to realize that some instructors didn't know how to bring themselves down to the students' level. My charges were asking why I wasn't teaching.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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I'm very knowledgeable and I know I am, but they don't call me wise, or highly skilled. Does the Dunning-Kruger effect say anything about arrogance? 
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This one is for real. 
Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany
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I think it comes down to the more experience you get, the more you realise how much there is that that you don't know or understand.
It's just that much of the business world appears to be based on the requirement to not own up to your limitations or failings, but to present some artificially impossible persona of perfection.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Quote: It's just that much of the business world appears to be based on the requirement to not own up to your limitations or failings, but to present some artificially impossible persona of perfection.
Very true of the business world - and also of politicians!
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I've read about it several years ago and made it into my daily usage.
The other one I use very often is cognitive dissonance [^].
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Cornelius Henning wrote: Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others."
Example: When people suggest that is easy to google for problems that they find easy.
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