Dunning-Kruger Effect

[SteveR]

I was introduced to the Dunning-Kruger Effect today. It seems familiar in my building a live steam locomotive experience.
"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. " from Wikipedia.

(this plot is from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... ect_01.svg which says it's in the public domain)
Hopefully, I'm somewhere past the valley of Despair on the slope of enlightenment!

LOL
Steve R

[Harold_V]

Hmmm. That's interesting. Care to share more of your thoughts? I'm keenly interested, as I constantly face challenges that are outside my area of expertise.

Many years ago I was in my shop when I received a visit from the husband of one of my sister's friends. He was a school teacher and had three months off each year, and had decided that he would start making parts for the machine shop industry.

I asked him if he'd ever run a lathe or mill, or if he had any shop experience. None, was his reply.

"What makes you think you can make parts?", I asked. It may look simple, but it isn't.

My thoughts: It takes years of getting one's hands dirty before parts can be made reliably, economically, per print, and without supervision. Anyone can make chips. It takes skill and experience to make (good) parts in a timely fashion, repetitively. If one goes through the learning curve at the expense of the customer, he won't have customers very long.

H

[SteveR]

Harold,
Unrelated to today's lesson, I recently was assembling some 2" galvanized pipe. Now I've been putting plumbing pipe together for a long time, but never anything this big. Nevertheless, it took 4 times with 4 different types of pipe sealant and had to buy a new pipe wrench. After the 3rd time I was very careful to find a sealant that said it would harden and work on pipe specifically up to 2". It was much more of a project than I thought it was going to be. (And the real plumbers out there are saying to themselves "See that's why we get the big bucks!).

If you search the web for "Dunning Kruger Effect Graph", there are a number of different annotations on the same basic curve. One that I found interesting put "10,000 hours experience" at a point on the slope of enlightenment. It also extended the curve into "Retirement" and "Forgetfulness".


SteveR

[tornitore45]

"See that's why we get the big bucks!)

One day I was called down in production for a circuit that failed test after the new die shrink processor replaced the old.
After the usual probing, triggering and scoping I saw exactly what was the problem. A design error causing a bus collision when two devices are trying to drive the bus. The original processor had a stronger drive and always "won" the match imposing its data, the die shrunk processor was weaker and did not always win. The design fault was never seen because of luck. How somebody that calls himself a digital circuit designer can make some basic error is beyond me but this was a company where BS was rewarded more that actual engineering skills.

So I scribble down the modification's required and said: this will fix it.
At that point the guy in production asked Are you Sure? Should we test a second unit and verify the change?
The diagnosis and fix was so simple there was no need so I said: No need I know is OK
To which the guy said something like How do you know?

At that point something that annoyed me clicked in. First I resented being questioned or even worst doubted on a professional matter, second is the mentality of testing the obvious.
So I answered "That is why I get the big buck"
From that day the guys in production called me the guy the gets the big bucks
I did not want to make this an arrogant thing so we all laughed about.

[Bill Shields]

Looks like a graph of the Peter Principal

[Steggy]

Looks like a graph of the Peter Principal

*Principle*

Laurence Peter was never a principal, but he was a professor. He was also noted for observing that "[The] noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog; it feeds the hand that bites it."

[Bill Shields]

spel and grammer ckucking at its finest

[pete]

Funny I ran across this thread because I also learned mostly by a lucky recommendation on YouTube about the Dunning Kruger Effect a few months ago. This video explains it quite well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FGnb2lgPBA&t=4s I got a pretty good chuckle out of it because it's something I've half way thought was true for over 20 years. Except my version wasn't worded nearly as nicely. And I'd very much agree with the videos stats for the average North American driver. Unfortunately while there's now an actual psychology name for the human behavioral reaction it doesn't solve how to fix it. Very much worth knowing about though so it affects your life less. I have a neighbor who could easily qualify as a perfect lab grade specimen for this effect.