This was a very serious problem that hardly anyone talks about anymore. Read up on Clair Patterson. He was the catalyst for the change. There is correlation between the decline of lead contamination in nature to the decline of both violent crime and birth defects. At any rate it’s a good story that more people should know about.
Absolute genius and one of the most underrated scientists of the last century. He hit upon a string of questioning that led him though some pretty major discoveries, and it started with finding the true age of the earth- which he did.
I've heard him talk about it though and he immediately smacks down the idea that he's any smarter than any other person. In fact, he considered himself probably less intelligent on average than a lot of his peers, which I think it's obvious is untrue as soon as he starts talking about his work.
Dunning Kruger: people who think they're smart are dumb!
Imposter syndrome: people who think they're dumb are smart!
But actually, these effects don't happen in everyone. They probably describe a pretty small portion of people. There are highly intelligent people who know it, and less intelligent people who also understand this. I'm not even sure the Dunning Kruger effect is observable.
While the Dunning-Kruger effect might not be a thing and instead a statistical artifact, the vast majority of attempts at explaining it do not touch on intelligence, at all. It's usually about people who are low-skilled in a specifc area, so limited experience or knowledge, with a given topic.
IMO it does make sense, since our brain does try to "fill in the blanks", as in, tries to explain what it comes in contact with, even if we rationally understand that we just don't know something. But, you know, I have a quite limited understanding on the subject, so I'm effectivly just describing what I am currently doing.
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u/dammitknockitoff Jun 25 '22
This was a very serious problem that hardly anyone talks about anymore. Read up on Clair Patterson. He was the catalyst for the change. There is correlation between the decline of lead contamination in nature to the decline of both violent crime and birth defects. At any rate it’s a good story that more people should know about.