In my criticism of the way in which the IT industry operates (not to mention american culture in general), a while ago I referred to Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments by Justin Kruger and David Dunning (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).

I’ve just come across an old 2004 exchange about books on design patterns at Slashdot.org, where one Anonymous Coward states:

Before perusing this discussion, you may want to get some perspective by reading Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments by Justin Kruger and David Dunning (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Well, I didn't know much about this guy. But anybody who defends his position by referring to this psychology paper doesn't score too high in my book. If you're not familiar with the paper, it basically asserts that stupid people don't realize how stupid they are. So referring to this paper is a subtle way of saying "you're stupid, and you don't know it".

But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.. after all some other pompous experts [dbdebunk.com] have referred to that paper yet raise important points based on sound theory. I.e., there is not necessarily a correlation between being an assmunch and being *wrong*.

He is obviously unaware—pun intended—that professional incompetence is quite distinct from stupidity, and that that his reaction validates the very argument he is dismissing!

You can’t make these things up.

Posted 4/8/05