it’s funny, he apparently went to medical school, so it seems like he’s cursed with having JUUUUST enough knowledge but not enough to know he doesnt know anything.
Dunning-Kreuger hits medical doctors and engineers the hardest.
I used to work for a civil engineer who was convinced that climate change was fake. While he was having to take rising sea levels into account. While he knew firsthand that the instances of 100-year storms had increased beyond what was statistically considered normal. He was still convinced that God would not allow humanity to alter the climate.
Specialized knowledge in a narrow field, can turn people into the biggest idiot. The humility it takes to be an expert in something but still listen to others, is beyond a lot of people. This is made even worse by fields like medicine and engineering that require a massive amount of ego to begin with.
I once met an engineer who thought climate change isn’t man made because the earth just does that sometimes, like when the ice age ended.
I mean, it does, but the signal looks totally different. It’s crazy that people with a little bit of knowledge can look at something like that and think “the experts who spend their whole lives thinking about this have probably never considered this thing I just found on Google!”
Yeah, it wasn’t the fact that such a cycle exists that was ridiculous, it was that it never occurred to him that maybe all of the climate scientists know about that cycle and took it into account.
Physicists are the worst with this, in my experience–even worse than engineers. They think that because their work is “more fundamental” than that of the special sciences and their models are more wide-ranging, they’re qualified to evaluate all other scientific work. Lots of physisicsts–even very good ones–turn climate crank in their old age.
Can’t speak for medicine, but I can definitely say that engineering doesn’t require a massive ego. It can reward it but I’ve worked with some very good, humble engineers in my time. Also one of two massive dickheads of course because as I say it can reward ego at times. In reality the majority of engineers I’ve known have been perfectly decent individuals. In reality I think it’s being any kind of expert that can do this to you - Michio Kaku and Neil Degrasse Tyson famously both have engineer brain.
it’s funny, he apparently went to medical school, so it seems like he’s cursed with having JUUUUST enough knowledge but not enough to know he doesnt know anything.
Dunning-Kreuger hits medical doctors and engineers the hardest.
I used to work for a civil engineer who was convinced that climate change was fake. While he was having to take rising sea levels into account. While he knew firsthand that the instances of 100-year storms had increased beyond what was statistically considered normal. He was still convinced that God would not allow humanity to alter the climate.
Specialized knowledge in a narrow field, can turn people into the biggest idiot. The humility it takes to be an expert in something but still listen to others, is beyond a lot of people. This is made even worse by fields like medicine and engineering that require a massive amount of ego to begin with.
I once met an engineer who thought climate change isn’t man made because the earth just does that sometimes, like when the ice age ended.
I mean, it does, but the signal looks totally different. It’s crazy that people with a little bit of knowledge can look at something like that and think “the experts who spend their whole lives thinking about this have probably never considered this thing I just found on Google!”
Yeah, it wasn’t the fact that such a cycle exists that was ridiculous, it was that it never occurred to him that maybe all of the climate scientists know about that cycle and took it into account.
Physicists are the worst with this, in my experience–even worse than engineers. They think that because their work is “more fundamental” than that of the special sciences and their models are more wide-ranging, they’re qualified to evaluate all other scientific work. Lots of physisicsts–even very good ones–turn climate crank in their old age.
Reminds me of that youtuber Sabine Hofstadter or whatever her name is.
Yeah, she’s a big one. Freeman Dyson, Fred Singer, and Fred Seitz too. It’s weirdly common.
Engineer plus kkkristian is a truly cursed and also distressingly common combo
Can’t speak for medicine, but I can definitely say that engineering doesn’t require a massive ego. It can reward it but I’ve worked with some very good, humble engineers in my time. Also one of two massive dickheads of course because as I say it can reward ego at times. In reality the majority of engineers I’ve known have been perfectly decent individuals. In reality I think it’s being any kind of expert that can do this to you - Michio Kaku and Neil Degrasse Tyson famously both have engineer brain.