On the self-image of loops

I find one of the most striking aspects of debate at EvC and other evo/creo sites to be the presence of "debaters" such as JAD and Kendeymer who are only unable to deabte but apparently totally unable to realise the nature of their quite obvious deficits and apparently continue to believe that their intellect and wisdom are nothing less than stellar despite of all the evidence. What particularly interests me is how these poor individuals came to have such a distorted image of their own ability.The closest I've come to an explanation is research such as this. Anyone got any other explanations?

I'd say that sounds pretty convincing to me. It seems to fit.

So....what is to be done? Is this a preface to asking for some sort of training? Perhaps the "self-evident may not be" lesson. I know I could use some training on debate (doing it on my own requires overcoming inertia [mind at rest....])Seriously, most participants in a forum like this tend to feel that they have to get their hits in immediately or the thread will move quickly past them. That sense of urgency doesn't lend itself to researched replies especially when one feels that they need to defend their belief system.You guys have been on this forum for a while and have seen the same creationist arguements at least several times. Consequently, the new meat(me!!) probably feels a little outgunned (can we say SS Minnow vs USS Iowa?)This is more of a conjecture on why you tend to get incoherent statements from us new guys than any real answer to the "why don't he do better?" question.

That is an understatement.

---

Hate world.Revenge soon!

I used to be a teacher's assistant so I had first hand experience with people that lack the ability to judge their own limits. Sometimes when I was helping them with difficult problems I became aware that if they were misinformed on certain methodology in solving the problems it was very difficult to convince them that they were wrong. I became accustomed to making up very simple problems and use their methods to show them how rediculous their answers would be if they used their method.Perhaps we could come up with simpler problems to point out to these people the mistakes in their methodology?

---

Hate world.Revenge soon!

A great number of the issues are brought up by those that are having the most trouble (e.g., JF and his silt discussion). They have as much time as they want to prepare. But they think they know it all already.

I've just had a skim over the article, and at first blush their study sounded exactly like what you would expect due to "regression to the mean." To their credit, the authors realize it, and they attempt to rule out that possibility.Did anybody else feel that the authors failed to do so? Their results in Experiment 4 in particular struck me as poorly interpreted and giving evidence to the "regression to the mean" hypothesis, rather than against it.As for the topic of this thread... from my reading / perspective, JAD takes his points to be self-evident from the sources he quotes. Since the evolutionists don't quickly agree with his "self-evident" points, he can't think of any explanation other than they're illogical. His experience is that people are often illogical due to some dogmatism (as we do see at this board all the time, ne?)That's my take on JAD. He's not really trying to debating at all. I think he even realizes that, as he's said so a few different times I believe.

What a great article. But I fear that, because it tells us something we're already sure we know - that some people are so incompetent that they don't even realize it - we're less likely to view the article with the appropriate level of scepticism.But it looks like Bencip19 has us covered there, for which I thank him.

I like the article, but unless you live a special place like Jesusland you really can't get a feel for how these people are trained to believe what they're told at church and to completely tune out and disregard criticism of those beliefs. They are trained to do this from the point of birth.I think a parallel situation might be found in music. Some classical musicians have been learning and honing their craft since the time they were first learning to walk and talk. Some of them disdain any form of popular music. You can try desperately to get them to see the value in a Lennon & McCartny ballad or a Jimi Hendrix guitar riff, but sometimes you just can't do it. I think something similar to the religion thing is at work.

---

Dog is my copilot.

LinearAq writes:

quote:

---

So....what is to be done? Is this a preface to asking for some sort of training?

---

Well, the big problem is how to go about telling incompetent people they are incompetent. It is extremely difficult to tell someone that they have a problem without them getting defensive, digging in their heels, and subsequently refusing to listen to anything you say.I'm reminded of the commentary made about this election. "Kerry lost the election because he told people they were stupid." Well, they were. They voted against their own self-interests and voted for Bush. But the thing is, how on earth do you tell a stupid person that he's stupid without pissing him off in the process?This study seems to think it's a nigh on impossible job: Even when shown directly that they don't know what they are talking about, they refuse to consider the possibility that they're wrong.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

The topic title was cryptic to me.I have added the "(Unskilled and Unaware of It)" part. This is from the title of the article cited in message 1.Maybe the topic title could still use improvement.Adminnemooseus

I don't know whether anything can be done. I'm much more interested in the 'why' rather than the 'how to change'.

Yes, there are undoubtably problems with the research; although I disagree with your regression to the mean interpretation. That's one of the reasons I was asking whether anyone else had any insight. Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder though why he chooses to engage in such a paranthetical way? One thing I find odd about JAD and other loops is that their posts are so often sprinkled with self-denigration and false humility - it's as if they know they're incapable but don't want to admit it in a very odd mixture of outstanding arogance and an inferiority complex.

I don't like the new title, it links the topic too closely to the article I posted which was not intended as the central topic of discussion.What is it about the title you find cryptic?

Jack-san,I went through the article more thoroughly. I still think the data is consistent with the following hypotheses:* All people tend to judge themselves as 'closer to average' than they actually are (regression to the mean) (this manifests itself as a 'flatter line' for predicted ability than for actual ability)* All people tend to misjudge what the mean is (this manifests itself by the predicted line being 'higher' or 'lower' on the graphs than the 50% mark; in this case, it's HIGHER, meaning that people tend to think the average is WORSE than the average actually is)* those who are incompetent don't have the tools to see that others are competent [this is one of the the author's hypotheses; it's pretty clearly true. People who are incompetent don't have the knowledge / tools to realize that they are incompetent. They would have to KNOW what the right thing was in order to make this judgement. Glossing over details in the distinction between declarative and non-declarative knowledge, this is pretty clearly true].Anyway, I don't know if this second set of hypotheses are agreeable to you, or if they help you think about your original quesiton. Honestly, I don't think so ( ), but since I had the thought, I thought I'd throw it out there and see if it gets you anywhere.I'll think more about it later. Gotta work for a bit :S And if you'd like to discuss thoughts about the article directly, I'd enjoy that. Maybe it gets you somewhere.Ben