People often suffer from an ‘illusion of knowledge,’ write the authors of a new study that finds that people who hold the most extreme views about genetically modified foods know the least. Recently, researchers asked more than 2,000 American and European adults their thoughts about genetically modified foods. They also asked them how much they thought they understood about GM foods, and a series of 15 true-false questions to test how much they actually knew about genetics and science in general. The researchers were interested in studying a perverse human phenomenon: People tend to be lousy judges of how much they know.
Across four studies conducted in three countries — the U.S., France and Germany — the researchers found that extreme opponents of genetically modified foods “display a lack of insight into how much they know.” They know the least, but think they know the most. “The less people know,” the authors conclude, “the more opposed they are to the scientific consensus.” “Science communicators have made concerted efforts to educate the public with an eye to bringing their attitudes in line with the experts,” they write in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. But people with an inflated sense of what they actually know — and most in need of education — are also the ones least likely to be open to new information. “This suggests that a pre-requisite to changing people’s views through education may be getting them to first appreciate the gaps in their knowledge,” the authors write.
The problem is similar to the Dunning-Kruger effect: The less competent a person is at something, the smarter they think they are. “Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices,” David Dunning and Justin Kruger wrote in their 1999 paper describing the phenomenon, “but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.” Or, as English actor and comedian John Cleese once said: “If you’re very, very stupid, how can you possibly realize that you’re very, very stupid? You’d have to be relatively intelligent to realize how stupid you are.”
Edmonton Journal, Sharon Kirkey, January 15, 2019