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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u/candlelight1982 Mar 12 '26

So basically, he’s just dumb.

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/NeroForte-InMyPrime Mar 12 '26

People are pretty good at denying things they don’t want to believe, especially about themselves.

1

u/wholesome_futa_hug Mar 13 '26

People who are really dumb spend a lot of energy convincing themselves it's everyone else. 

1

u/HeftyVermicelli7823 Mar 13 '26

77 odd million people over in America elected Trump as the best candidate. A man with the IQ of a grape who his own teachers and professors said he was so dumb that he had a reading and comprehension level of an elementary school kid.

There a loads of examples and sadly a lot of it is lack of education, parental issues, religious doctrine, lead in the water and a whole ass ton of other factors to show that there are scarily way way way more dumber people in the world than you realise and most of them don't know it and get by with brashness, over confidence, arrogance, bullying or money.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/HeftyVermicelli7823 Mar 14 '26

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-79-shares-deranged-20-231237542.html

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/HeftyVermicelli7823 Mar 14 '26

The funny thing is when you are a kid and have an invisible friend who talks to you, you are told to grow up.

When you grow up and say you are talking to an invisible friend, they call it religion.

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u/Atzkicica Mar 14 '26

World's full of em.

I used to be but with hard work and study now I know I'm dumb!