Science Talk

STARSHIP Takes to the Skies for Flight 8!

2025-03-06T21:28:00.001-05:00

IS Proxima Centauri b Hiding Alien Life?

2025-03-05T20:37:00.002-05:00

The information universe Part 13

2024-02-06T11:35:00.003-05:00

Music video dealing with what seems to be going on behind the scenes in Quantum mechanics and physics in general. It is part of a series.

High Calling: The Courageous Life and Faith of
Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband

NASA Lunar Telescope for Kids

Telescope 130EQ Newtonian Reflector Telescopes for Adults

Make purchases on Amazon through this link

The Carlton Mystery: The mystery of the old clock

Warrior Press

What would happen if we put water on Mars?

2024-02-05T10:15:00.002-05:00

It depends on how much water, and whether or not it was in a container.

A few gallons or even thousands of gallons of water in a sealed container would eventually freeze she provided it with heat. If you exposed it to the Martian atmosphere, any water would sublimate and probably come down as snow.

Now if you were talking about a lot more water such as enough to convert the Northern Lowlands into a sea then it would still evaporate over time and rain down as snow. However, adding enough of it would raise the atmospheric pressure to the point where there could be liquid water. In fact, the Hellas Impact Basin is actually deep enough that the atmospheric pressure is high enough for liquid water but it would probably still freeze.

Actually, the main problem with Mars when it comes to water is not necessarily not having enough of it, but the fact that it is too cold for it to be liquid on the Martian surface, along with too low of an air pressure to maintain liquid water.

High Calling: The Courageous Life and Faith of
Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband

NASA Lunar Telescope for Kids

Telescope 130EQ Newtonian Reflector Telescopes for Adults

Make purchases on Amazon through this link

The Carlton Mystery: The mystery of the old clock

Warrior Press

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

2023-12-02T12:27:00.000-05:00

Introduction

The Dunning-Kruger Effect has been stated in several ways but the basic concept is that the less knowledgeable you are on a topic the more likely you are to overestimate how good you are. This concept has recently become quite popular for attacking anyone who disagrees with the establishment experts on a topic. It is being abused to shut down discussion by simply claiming you don't know enough to be competent on the topic. In many ways, it has become a way for those pushing it to casually dismiss any line of thinking that challenges their worldview. While insisting that you bow the knee intellectually to the priests they call experts and whose claims they accept on blind faith.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is based on a 1999 psychology paper called:

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

Justin Kruger and David Dunning

Cornell University

This paper probably would have remained an obscure psychological study had it not been popularized by President Trump's political enemies. It has gone far beyond an attack on him personally to being used against anybody who thinks for themselves and comes to non-establishment conclusions. The funny thing is that most people who refer to the Dunning-Kruger Effect have clearly never read the original paper. Furthermore, even if they have they are taking on faith that the data says what the writers are claiming. They are clearly simply repeating and copying what they have heard or seen elsewhere without a bit of independent thought on the topic.

The misrepresentation of
the Dunning-Kruger Effect

This is the standard depiction of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It shows the well-known peak at the beginning with it slumping in the middle, and then increasing cash you become an official expert.

The popularizers of the Dunning-Kruger Effect have even named certain parts of their chart. From the "peak of 'Mt. stupid'", to the "Valley of despair" and the glorious "slope of enlightenment." The entire idea behind this chart is to make it look like anybody who disagrees with the official experts is up on "Mt. stupid" and if they do not know what they are talking about, well the experts that they agree with are on the "slope of enlightenment" you know unquestionably about what they're talking about.

Unfortunately, this chart is completely bogus, and exactly where it came from is not known. It definitely did not originate with the original paper. It seems however to read the invention of somebody who wanted to make the paper seem like it said more than it really does.

The actual data from the paper is more like this. In this chart while the novice does have an exaggerated view of his abilities not only is it lower than the experts but it needs to be understood in context. First of all the extreme novice, cannot underestimate their knowledge while the extreme expert cannot overestimate it. Not only is this depiction only a generalized representation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect but there are reasons to question the validity of the study and the quality of the data as well as the accuracy of the interpretation presented in the paper.

Flaws in the paper

The fundamental flaws in this paper include the fact that it is a psychological experiment. As a field of study, psychology lacks much of the rigor of the hard Sciences like chemistry and physics. Part of this is because the subjects of such studies are intelligent sentient human beings and not inanimate objects. In fact, there was a lot of variation within the data from study to study.

65 Cornell University undergraduates

45 Cornell University undergraduates

84 Cornell University undergraduates

140 Cornell University undergraduates

Not only do these studies show a degree of inconsistency between them, but on average the individual's perception of their ability seems to be relatively flat. The distinction seems to be largely a result of the difference in their actual knowledge, more than their individual perception.

Furthermore, the same Trend tends to follow when other topics are considered other than factual knowledge. In other words, whether you are talking about humor, logical reasoning, grammar, and other areas the pattern seems to remain the same.

By itself, this should be enough to bust the myth of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The data just does not show what is being claimed, all it shows is the tendency of people to think they are average or just above it. However, it gets even worse for the Dunning-Kruger Effect when other studies are looked at.

A Subsequent Related Study

There is a 2006 paper that shows Kruger and Dunning analysis of the data was flawed.

Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of It: How Perceptions of Difficulty Drive Miscalibration in Relative Comparisons

By Katherine A. Burson et al

This study the measurements based on the general difficulty of the task rather than knowledge on a topic. Not only did it show a similar pattern but it showed a connection between perception of difficulty and how well someone would think they did versus how they actually did.

These studies show clearly a tendency for the perception of how easy the topic is to affect individuals' perceptions of how they will do, however, the basic pattern is still present.

This chart shows the general tendency of the relationship between harder and easier domains. The general pattern with everyone seeing themselves doing worse on the harder domains than the easier ones.

Here we have a comparison between the two studies strongly suggesting that the exact patterns obtained by the Dunning-Kruger are the result more of a perception of easiness than. anything else. Also, the same general pattern appears.

This is particularly evident when you give a good comparison of the relative positions do the line of quality of performance. The closer one looks at the Dunning-Kruger data the more evident it is largely a statistical effect. In fact, this is proven when one looks at random data.

Random Data

When you look at the original Dunning-Kruger data you'll note that it is found in quarters not percentages, in other words, everybody who did 25% or less were grouped together. Those who did 25% to 50% were grouped together, those that did 50% to 75% were grouped together, and those that did better than 75% were grouped together.

This chart shows random data that is distributed over the entire range of both axes. What is interesting is what happens when this data is transferred to a chart like the original Dunning-Kruger data.

Indeed the basic pattern is the same as all the other charts. Now you may say that this is not close enough to the original Dunning-Kruger data to explain it. However, you have to understand that this was done with a completely random set of data. In the actual Dunning-Kruger study the subjects for students, the experiment being pretty much done by their teachers. Do you really think any college student would admit to his teacher that he thinks he is going to get a zero on a test? Consequently, it is quite clear that the original Dunning-Kruger data would have had such a bias.

This also uses random data but it uses the bias that would tend to result from the fact that no college student in his right mind would never admit to a teacher that he thought he would get less than 30% on any kind of test. Consequently, 30% was set as the minimum in the sample.

This clearly does a much better job of reproducing the original Dunning-Kruger data. Well not exact there is no reason to expect it to be.

This comparison makes it abundantly clear that these two results are similar enough to demonstrate the actual Dunning-Kruger data is nothing but a statistical fluke. These results show indisputably that the Dunning-Kruger Effect has no basis in reality. At best it is a result of a tendency to think we are average or slightly above-average. However, it is most likely just a statistical artifact of the methodology used.

Proposed origin of the chart

This was based on a plane made by a YouTube critic the criticism I presented on that platform. The claim is that the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve was a result of subtracting the two lines in the charts in the actual paper. The claim ignores all the other problems with the Dunning Kruger paper. Among other things, it ignores a math problem with the original claim.

Proposed

𝐷=𝐿Perceived −𝐿actual

Actual

𝐶𝐷𝐾=|𝐿Perceived − 𝐿𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 |

Here is one of multiple examples of this effect in action. It shows that if this is the origin of the chart that is presented online it is an overage at best.

A. Demonstrates the original data of this example.

B. Demonstrate subtracting the two data sets from each other.

C. Demonstrates taking the absolute value of that difference.

After doing all of this we still do not have the original chart of the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve.

Bay the only way you get anything even remotely close to the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve is by adding an additional line that starts at zero. Then you get something that vaguely looks like it. Ultimately even getting this close is basically nothing but a mathematical trick. This process essentially destroys any meaning behind the numbers. It certainly does not produce a chart with the meaning claimed by the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve. If the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve was indeed produced this way, it does not give it any meaning. On the contrary, it takes away any meaning that existed in the original charts. So, if the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve was produced this way. It ends up being a very bad manipulation, of statistically meaningless data indicating that the so-called Dunning Kruger Curve is a complete fraud. It suggests that it is nothing, but a piece of propaganda produced in reporting on a bogus psychological study.

Conclusion

When all of this is looked at together it is abundantly clear that the so-called Dunning-Kruger Effect is nothing but a bogus claim made based on a statistically meaningless psychological study. It does however serve as a very good example of how a completely bogus concept can come into popular use simply because nobody bothers to check the actual original material, and because it is a convenient way of attacking those you disagree with.

You don't answer my original YouTube videos on this topic.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Dunning Kruger Effect 2

Here are some books you may find interesting.

The Book of Unusual Knowledge

Knowledge Book, The: Everything You Need to Know to Get by in the 21st Century

1144 Random, Interesting & Fun Facts You Need To Know

The Carlton Mystery: The mystery of the old clock

Warrior Press

Planet Seems Too Big for Its Host Star

2023-12-01T16:08:00.008-05:00

Astronomers have discovered a plant that is unusually large for its host star. This planet while 13 times the size of Earth orbits a star called LHS 3154 which 1/9th the size of the sun. This planet also orbited the star in just 3.7 Earth days. The key problem for naturalistic theories of planetary formation is that a planet-forming disk around as a low-mass star as LHS 3154 is not expected to have enough solid mass to produce such a large planet.

Reference: Astronomers spot ‘overweight’ planet that appears too big for tiny host star.

Celestron - SkyMaster Giant 15x70 Binoculars

Refractor Telescope for Adults and Kids

130mm Newtonian Reflector – iPhone/Android Compatible

The Backyard Astronomer's Guide

Astronomy Activity Book for Kids

Smart People Hobby Astronomy - Funny Astronomer Gift T-Shirt

98% Similarity with Chimpanzee Myth.

2023-11-30T11:14:00.000-05:00

You have probably heard the claim that human DNA is 98% similar to that of chimpanzees. However, this is a typical case of scientific reporting being more friendly to evolution than the actual paper. It ignores several factors that the original paper itself mentions that show the claim is bogus as reported.

The 98% similarity figure is based on a comparison only of parts of human and chimpanzee DNA that can be easily aligned. Then counting only those parts that are single nucleotide differences called substitutions you get about 98% similarity, however, it does not end there. When you include insertions and deletions, that is segments where you insert one or more nucleotides or delete one or more nucleotides from the compared sequence then the similarity drops by 3% to give you a similarity of only about 95%. Now, this is still quite high, but the propaganda value is reduced greatly.

However, it gets worse for the evolutionary interpretation because the segments that are easily aligned exclude the 18% of a chimpanzee genome in 25% of the human genome that does not align. This reduces the actual degree of similarity to only about 74%. This is a far cry from the 98% similarity often claimed by evolutionists.

So why do evolutionists cite the 98% figure as if it were the actual degree of similarity between the DNA of humans and chimps? In most cases it is ignorance. They have never read the actual paper, as a result, the only way they know this figure is by reading it in articles and seeing it in videos. The folks who have fallen into this category are pretty much victims of those who are pushing this idea. The main source of their guilt in this regard is not bothering to check the original source material but just accepting a science-reporting article on blind faith. Ironically this is something that they frequently accuse creationists of doing.

However, what about those who should know better because they have read the original paper but still report the 98% figure? One reason would be they are so biased that all they actually see is the 98% figure and anything else just goes over their head. The other possibility is that the 98% similarity figure has such great propaganda value that they cannot resist repeating it as if it were true despite knowing that it is not. Anyone who falls under this category is simply lying through their teeth.

So, the basis of the 98% similarity figure is that parts of the human and chimp genomes that easily align, while only counting substitutions and ignoring insertions and deletions. The simple fact of the matter is the human and chimpanzee genomes are nowhere near as similar as evolutionists claim. The figure, however, has such great propaganda value but even those who know better apparently cannot resist the urge to use it.

References

Traced: Human DNA's Big Surprise

Genetic Entropy

An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome

The information universe Part 12

2023-06-19T13:07:00.000-04:00

Entropy and Applied Energy

2023-06-06T07:54:00.001-04:00

Artemis II Crew Announced

2023-04-03T15:01:00.001-04:00

Dinosaurs and the Bible

2020-10-27T15:33:00.001-04:00

The information Universe

2020-10-19T14:47:00.001-04:00

Catastrophic Martian Geology

2020-09-29T19:49:00.001-04:00

Genetics and Human Origin

2020-01-16T19:46:00.001-05:00

Genetics and Human Origin

2019-11-14T23:01:00.001-05:00

Relativity and the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention

2019-09-16T17:17:00.001-04:00

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 5

2019-05-22T14:42:00.001-04:00

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 4

2019-05-22T13:50:00.001-04:00

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 3

2019-05-22T13:01:00.001-04:00

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 2

2019-05-22T11:47:00.001-04:00

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 1

2019-05-22T11:11:00.001-04:00

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 TV Transmission

2019-05-20T14:11:00.001-04:00

The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 continues

2019-05-18T20:58:00.006-04:00

This video is a commemoration of the for the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 10

2019-05-18T20:58:00.001-04:00

SpaceX Crew Dragon Update

2019-05-06T17:01:00.001-04:00

Science Talk

STARSHIP Takes to the Skies for Flight 8!

IS Proxima Centauri b Hiding Alien Life?

The information universe Part 13

What would happen if we put water on Mars?

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

The misrepresentation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Flaws in the paper

A Subsequent Related Study

Random Data

Proposed origin of the chart

Conclusion

Planet Seems Too Big for Its Host Star

98% Similarity with Chimpanzee Myth.

The information universe Part 12

Entropy and Applied Energy

Artemis II Crew Announced

Dinosaurs and the Bible

The information Universe

Catastrophic Martian Geology

Genetics and Human Origin

Genetics and Human Origin

Relativity and the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 5

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 4

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 3

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 2

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 Snoopy for Ride Part 1

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 TV Transmission

SpaceX Crew Dragon Update

The misrepresentation of
the Dunning-Kruger Effect