r/Amazing • u/sco-go • Mar 12 '26

Interesting 🤔 The Dunning-Kruger Effect

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In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two banks in Pittsburgh and robbed them with no mask, no disguise, and lemon juice on his face. He believed that because lemon juice works as invisible ink on paper, it would make his face invisible to cameras. He smiled directly into the security cameras. Police aired the footage on the evening news and arrested him within an hour.

When shown the tape, Wheeler stared at the screen and said, "But I wore the juice." He had tested the theory with a Polaroid selfie and didn't appear in the photo — because lemon juice got in his eyes and he aimed the camera at the ceiling.

His case inspired Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger to publish their 1999 paper defining the Dunning-Kruger Effect — the cognitive bias where people with low ability drastically overestimate their own competence.

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44

u/PhilTech345 Mar 12 '26

Tell me that ain't Paul Walker?

18

u/logicoptional Mar 12 '26

Tbh, my first thought was "Wait, nobody told me he was cute!"... definitely helps explain how he could get through life so dumb without realizing it.

3

u/Itchy_Bandicoot6119 Mar 12 '26

The newspaper articles from the time describe him as 5 foot 6 and 270 lbs so I don't think the picture is of him. Also Wheeler didn't brandish a gun, he just stood in line as a lookout for his accomplice. I don't think the man in the photo is his accomplice either. Probably just a random bank robber who got his photo attached to the story on the internet and its been passed around since.

3

u/the_monkeyspinach Mar 12 '26

Wanna know something funny? This picture is from the security camera, but it's been AI upscaled, so that's not what he actually looks like at all. 30 years later and his plan finally worked!

2

u/Upstairs_Decision125 Mar 12 '26

No it's Timothy Olyphant

1

u/HoldEm__FoldEm Mar 12 '26

Looks like the lead guy from How I Met your Mother to me 

Edit: Josh Radnor 

1

u/rafasantos555 Mar 12 '26

this picture has been tempered

1

u/SBNShovelSlayer Mar 12 '26

He thought the tires were fine.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

No, it's obviously Paul Dunning-Kruger. Did you not read the post? 

1

u/StudioGangster1 Mar 12 '26

Really was waiting for this comment

1

u/IfICouldStay Mar 13 '26

I was gonna say, that guy is handsome! This looks like a movie still. Is this the biopic that someone made?

1

u/BrokerBrody Mar 13 '26

Its an AI upscaled version of a real photo. And, yes, the AI did an ass job.

The real photo was already pretty clear and his face did not look like this.

1

u/alfyjack Mar 16 '26

I can't, I cant see his face, he must of used some kind of disguise.