[Vision2020] You Don't Know Enough To Know What You Don't Know

[Rosemary Huskey]

I just ran across an article( Unskilled and Unaware of It:
<http://www.physics.uofl.edu/williger/unskilled_and_unaware_1999.pdf>   How
difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to inflated
Self-Assessments ) which begins:  "It is one of the essential features of
such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that
he is incompetent."   The obvious focus of the article  - one frequently
discussed on this forum - is the ignorance of those who don't know what they
don't know and proceed stupidly down the road risking the lives and well
being of others.

 

Until now my two favorite examples of willfully moronic, self-aggrandizing,
ninnyhood included direct entry midwives - hiding behind the bogus claims
that they are well-trained,  competent, and a safe alternative to
professionally credentialed and academically trained medical providers, and
Doug Wilson with his unending grandiose posing  and specious claims of
unverified expertise that ranges from counseling sexual predators (a
dismissive hand wave to Steven Sitler, Jamin Wight and all their Kirk pals
and defenders) to an unpleasant bent for designing a private educational
system with the requisite Tom Brown's School Days  use of beating miscreant
students into subjugation.  I offer, at this point, a limp salute to Dorothy
Sayer, Doug's muse, who had no teaching experience but did have a child at
thirty that she passed off to her aunt and cousin as soon as she delivered
him - he was acknowledged as her son only after her death - no academic
administrative experience, yet, none the less felt qualified to author the
The Lost Tools of Learning <http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html>  - which
curiously begins: "That I, whose experience of teaching is extremely
limited, should presume to discuss education is a matter, surely, that calls
for no apology."   What a pair of silly, self-important gits.

 

But more to the point, and certainly front and center right now, the Tea
Party fruitcakes, the Neo-confederate (hey Doug, you fit in this category
too) jackasses who have no understanding of economics, (or contemporary
science), will eagerly risk the financial well being of this country,
including the devaluing of our currency and will, no doubt, delight in the
subsequent worldwide financial panic for the pleasure of embarrassing the
President.  They and their fellow travelers  are beneath contempt.

 

Rose Huskey

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20131015/05d4b3db/attachment.html>