Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, and Why People Believe Donald Trump's Lies



It would be funny if it wasn't so sad:
It’s all to do with the Dunning-Kruger effect, the tendency for the least mentally proficient people to often overestimate their own abilities.

Research into this area was inspired by a story so incredibly ridiculous it’s hard to believe that it’s true.

In 1995 a man by the name of McArthur Wheeler learnt that lemon juice can be used as an invisible ink.

He took his new-found knowledge one (rather large) step further and robbed two Pittsburgh banks, his face covered in lemon juice, convinced it would render his features invisible to CCTV.

When police later showed him video tapes of himself robbing the banks, he muttered: “But I wore the juice.”

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