The tremulous falsetto of Pauline Hansen tells the Senate chamber we’re in danger of being swamped by Muslims.
Prefacing this statement with the reminder that she made the same claim twenty years ago about Asians, highlights the brazen substitution of one imaginary hobgoblin with another.
Casting a broad stroke through her own credibility, Hanson boasted of a prediction which has conspicuously failed to materialize. Abject failure didn’t dampen her confidence. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Consequently, we should wonder what, if anything, we’re in danger of being “swamped” by.
Cue the Dunning-Kruger effect: the curious phenomenon of persons emboldened by ignorance, rather than cautioned by it: “confident idiots”.
Counterintuitively, those …show more content…
It’s something to be cautious about, something to guard against. Expertise and scientific training is scorned by confident idiots. Exhibit A: One Nation Senator Malcom Roberts, calmly telling scientist Brian Cox how climate change is a conspiracy orchestrated by NASA. Andrew Bolt must have blushed at this “warmist” conjecture.
According to David Dunning, misbeliefs arise from cherished beliefs, “narratives about the self, ideas about the social order—that essentially cannot be violated”.
“And any information that we glean from the world is amended, distorted, diminished, or forgotten in order to make sure that these sacrosanct beliefs remain whole and unharmed”.
The hallmark of “confident idiot” is the denial of science in favour of preferred and unsubstantiated theories. Google provides an easy and fun way of finding arguments to justify one’s prejudices. If we want it to be true, it can be true. The collateral damage of the information explosion is the unrelenting attack on expertise and scientific fact.
Science is not above reproach or immutable. But its limits are well established enough. We perpetuate science-denialism by giving it uncritical and often equal coverage in the false guise of fairness. Tedious though it may be, focusing on facts rather than racism may be a better
Prefacing this statement with the reminder that she made the same claim twenty years ago about Asians, highlights the brazen substitution of one imaginary hobgoblin with another.
Casting a broad stroke through her own credibility, Hanson boasted of a prediction which has conspicuously failed to materialize. Abject failure didn’t dampen her confidence. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Consequently, we should wonder what, if anything, we’re in danger of being “swamped” by.
Cue the Dunning-Kruger effect: the curious phenomenon of persons emboldened by ignorance, rather than cautioned by it: “confident idiots”.
Counterintuitively, those …show more content…
It’s something to be cautious about, something to guard against. Expertise and scientific training is scorned by confident idiots. Exhibit A: One Nation Senator Malcom Roberts, calmly telling scientist Brian Cox how climate change is a conspiracy orchestrated by NASA. Andrew Bolt must have blushed at this “warmist” conjecture.
According to David Dunning, misbeliefs arise from cherished beliefs, “narratives about the self, ideas about the social order—that essentially cannot be violated”.
“And any information that we glean from the world is amended, distorted, diminished, or forgotten in order to make sure that these sacrosanct beliefs remain whole and unharmed”.
The hallmark of “confident idiot” is the denial of science in favour of preferred and unsubstantiated theories. Google provides an easy and fun way of finding arguments to justify one’s prejudices. If we want it to be true, it can be true. The collateral damage of the information explosion is the unrelenting attack on expertise and scientific fact.
Science is not above reproach or immutable. But its limits are well established enough. We perpetuate science-denialism by giving it uncritical and often equal coverage in the false guise of fairness. Tedious though it may be, focusing on facts rather than racism may be a better