Photo via waltermint/Reddit
March 22, 2021, 11:53 am
A video submitted to the “Public Freakout” forum on Reddit is on the upswing as people laugh at the clip of an anti-vaxxer being confronted with the concept of the Dunning–Kruger effect and accidentally proving it true within the next few seconds. The video starts with the unmasked man claiming that oregano oil is a cure for COVID-19.
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“You can take like oregano oil, you can dilute 10 drops of oregano oil and drink that over the course of the morning and do that 10 days in a row, and your COVID symptoms will be gone,” he says.
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This might actually be true, but only because in mild cases, COVID-19 symptoms last an average of about 10 days. The interviewer doesn’t point this out in the moment, instead defaulting to calling this claimed miracle cure “total f—ing bulls–t.”
“I honestly don’t care what you think,” says the anti-vaxxer to the interviewer he’s still talking to. “I don’t think you’ve done your research.”
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A quick Google search will tell you how long COVID-19 symptoms last in the average case.
The video then cuts to an even better part of the interview in which the masked individual with the microphone tries to explain a fun scientific hypothesis.
“Do you understand how Dunning–Kruger works?” he asks.
The anti-vaxxer seems to be instantly offended at the sound of names he doesn’t recognize.
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“I don’t understand how anything you refer to even makes any sense, brother,” he says. “What is that?”
“Dunning–Kruger, so like the stupidest people in the room think they’re the smartest,” the interviewer explains.
The Dunning–Kruger effect hypothesizes that the people who have the lowest ability or knowledge on a specific subject are more likely to believe that their ability or knowledge is actually high. David Dunning, one of the authors behind this theory, describes it as a phenomenon “in which poor performers in many social and intellectual domains seem largely unaware of just how deficient their expertise is.”
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“Their deficits leave them with a double burden—not only does their incomplete and misguided knowledge lead them to make mistakes but those exact same deficits also prevent them from recognizing when they are making mistakes and other people choosing more wisely.”
This theory has been challenged by other experts, but the interviewee in the Reddit video seems to lend credibility to Dunning and Kruger.
“Is your name Dunning-Kruger?” he asks, pointing at the interviewer. “Like, what are you gonna come out with next? Occam’s razor? The simplest explanation is that I’m an idiot?”
Occam’s razor is a principle, often used in the field of medicine, which states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And yes, it absolutely applies to this case.
“That last part is when you use the wrong formula but get the right answer,” joked one commenter
*First Published: March 22, 2021, 11:53 am
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