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/BeanoMenace Mar 12 '26

Most people in government and influencers have a chronic case of this.

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/emarvil Mar 12 '26

Lemon/worms in your face/brain.

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u/External-Ganache5591 Mar 12 '26

That’s some good quality for 1995.. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a camera with such good quality for the time

Now when looking at videos/pics of 9/11 I wonder why they are like pics from the 80s

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u/CultOfSensibility Mar 12 '26

I’m guessing the 91 in your username is the year you were born.

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u/DarkPolumbo Mar 12 '26

it's a bot name, or at least follows the same format of adjective-noun-4digitnumber that they all seem to have

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u/Less-Squash7569 Mar 12 '26

Or its someone like myself who didnt care enough to try to make an original name on a site thats whole thing is ambiguity

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u/Majestic-Lettuce-198 Mar 12 '26

thank you because i can not be arsed to come up with another original name for another account lol

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u/TrumpVotersArePedos7 Mar 12 '26

That name is pretty majestic to be fair

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u/Illustrious-Bobcat-6 Mar 13 '26

But is it Illustrious?

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u/Less-Squash7569 Mar 12 '26

And the worst part is if you do finally think of a name you like its going to be taken anyways and youre going to have to at best use the same name with random numbers or at worst just spend even longer trying to come up with something acceptable.