Duh!

Have you ever noticed that some people refuse to recognize that they are mistaken, or cannot even see where their faulty logic is flawed?

Part of the explanation for this prevalent phenomenon (described in the video) is that we need to understand some threshold amount in order to comprehend that our skills or knowledge are deficient.

Another interesting aspect of Dunning's and Kruger's research is that those individuals who are competent have a tendency to underestimate their comparative level of competence.



Justin Kruger & David Dunning.
Unskilled and unaware of It: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

Journal of personality and social psychology
1999, vol.77, no.6, pp1121-1134
©1999 by American Psychological Association, Inc.

Sexism and Religiosity

“There is evidence to support the notion that practitioners of well-established religious traditions tend to show greater adherence to conventional gender roles (1) and that increased education is associated with less prejudiced attitudes in general (2) and with less sexist attitudes in particular (3).”

"The relationships of education and religiosity to hostile and benevolently sexist attitudes toward women and men, as assessed by the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996) and the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory (AMI; Glick & Fiske, 1999), was explored in a random sample of 1,003 adults (508 women, 495 men) from Galicia, Spain. For both men and women (a) level of educational attainment negatively correlated with hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes, and (b) Catholic religiosity uniquely predicted more benevolent, but not more hostile, sexist attitudes. Although correlational, these data are consistent with the notion that active participation in the Catholic Church may reinforce benevolently sexist ideologies that legitimate gender inequality, whereas education may be effective in diminishing sexist beliefs."*

Education and Catholic Religiosity as Predictors of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism toward Women and Men

Journal article by Peter Glick, Maria Lameiras, Yolanda Rodriguez Castro; Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, No. 96, 2002

1. e.g., Jensen & Jensen, 1993; Sanchez & Hall, 1999; Wilcox & Jelen, 1991
2. Farley, Steeh, Krysan, Jackson, & Reeves, 1994
3. Benson & Vincent, 1980; Sidanius, 1993

Tour d'Ivoire

I've been listening to the interesting discussions at the Beyond Belief 1 conferences. Several speakers have, I think correctly, identified current anti-science attitudes as not merely stemming from religion per se, but also from poor education in science and in critical thinking. The recently released PISA test results certainly confirm this for 15 year olds in America.

One speaker seems to believe that people are merely confused about whether or not to believe scientific findings, and consequently that better conveying rational information about science will enable these people to assess scientific claims for themselves.

This led me to wonder what planet this fella lives on. Earth obviously, but that segment of Earth referred to as the ivory tower*:

"a sheltered, overly-academic existence or perspective, implying a disconnection or lack of awareness of reality or practical considerations."

How do otherwise intelligent people come to be so oblivious of the mental machinations of the average person? Academics are protected from the guy in the street, that's how.

I don't recall which scale was used for the report in which I read that the average IQ of university graduates is 110 (Wechsler, 74th percentile; Stanford-Binet, 73rd). Harvard medical students averaged 135 (W, 99th; S-B 98.5th). There's lots of controversy about IQ tests, yet they are good predictors of academic performance. The scales are standardized with a score of 100 for the 50th percentile. Most people clump around the hump at 100.

Extrapolating, I assume that most graduate students average somewhere between 110 and 135. This would mean that most professors probably come into close contact with students who are brighter than at least 70% of the population, and who are motivated to think and to learn. No wonder this professor had an inflated estimation of the level of science-interest of the population-at-large. He certainly must not have taught science to reluctant, hormone-obsessed teenagers.

The members of religious congregations are quite capable of learning "we do not believe in evolution because goddidit." Not a difficult concept to master, particularly since goddidit requires no comprehension of complicated mechanisms – virtually no comprehension of any kind, really.

In most Western countries, the average person may understand little about the mechanisms of evolution, but at least they were officially taught that there is abundant evidence that biological evolution occurred. However, in America, the teaching of creationism in high schools has only been illegal since 1987, so the bulk of the population has been taught only misinformation. No wonder science in America is in some trouble.

*Apparently the term "ivory tower" takes its current meaning from a poem by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve.




biological evolution, critical thinking, education, religion, science, IQ

Hurrah for Europe!

The Founding Fathers may have been enlightened for their time, as witnessed by constitutional separation of church and state, but Europe has been ahead of America in enlightenment ever since:

The dangers of creationism in education

3. Creationism, born of the denial of the evolution of species through natural selection, was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon. Today creationist ideas are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states.

4. The prime target of present-day creationists, most of whom are Christian or Muslim, is education. Creationists are bent on ensuring that their ideas are included in the school science syllabus. Creationism cannot, however, lay claim to being a scientific discipline.

5. Creationists question the scientific character of certain items of knowledge and argue that the theory of evolution is only one interpretation among others. They accuse scientists of not providing enough evidence to establish the theory of evolution as scientifically valid. On the contrary, they defend their own statements as scientific. None of this stands up to objective analysis.

Full list (1-20) can be found here: Europe Moves To Ban Creationsim in Schools .

From Council of Europe: Provisional edition, The dangers of creationism in education, Resolution 1580 (2007): Assembly debate on 4 October 2007 (35th Sitting) (see Doc. 11375, report of the Committee on Culture, Science and Education, rapporteur: Mrs Brasseur). Text adopted by the Assembly on 4 October 2007 (35th Sitting).

Hurrah for Sweden! Sweden to Suppress Religion in Schools - Proposal That Britain do the Same .




biological evolutionChristianityCouncil of Europecreationismeducationintelligent designIslamreligionscience