How sure are you about your beliefs? Did you know there is an inverse correlation between certainty and accuracy? People who hold false or mistaken ideas are often absolutely certain they are right. This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.
Wikipedia
David Dunning and Justin Kruger point out that low ability people have a “dual burden.” They are not only incompetent, but they lack the mental ability to recognize their own ineptness.
However, the Dunning-Kruger effect does not always indicate a low IQ. Dunning and Kruger point out that everyone is susceptible to the effect because everyone has areas of knowledge they are less familiar with.
Psychologists have noted that after someone looks something up on the internet they tend to immediately feel they are more expert, or smarter, than they actually are. In addition, rather than being cautious and tentative about their lack of knowledge, less informed people tend to form stronger opinions based on less evidence.
On the other end of the spectrum, Dunning and Kruger found that actual experts tend to underestimate their own abilities compared to others. In other words, the more someone knows, the less likely they are to feel that they have superior knowledge. Greater knowledge reveals to learners their own ignorance. The more you know, the more you realize how much more there IS to know.
It may be tempting for Latter-day Saints to presume that they don’t need to work at learning new things and expanding their understanding. After all, we have been given “the truth” from prophets. But when the prophet Moses saw a vision of the entire Earth and all its inhabitants, he suddenly realized how little he knew.
Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.
Moses 1:10
If this was Moses’ experience, clearly there remains much for the rest of us to learn. Closing our eyes and ears and thinking we are already enlightened is not a good way for “Saints” to behave.
Sources: Kendra Cherry, “What Is the Dunning-Kruger Effect?” Verywell Mind, March 13,2019.
Sarah Knapton, “Google ‘makes people think they are smarter than they are,” The Telegraph, March 31, 2015
Mark Prigg, “How Google makes you feel smarter than you are: Researchers say we confuse our own knowledge with what is online,” Daily Mail, April 1, 2015.
Nibley talked about ‘the gas law of learning’, that ‘any amount of knowledge expands to fill any intellectual void, no matter how large.’ His own wonder and humility came in finding that increased knowledge increases awareness of the unknown.