boy does fox news exploit this trait.. People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies. The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people's ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments. As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. On top of that, "very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people donât have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is," Dunning told Life's Little Mysteries. He and colleague Justin Kruger, formerly of Cornell and now of New York University, have demonstrated again and again that people are self-delusional when it comes to their own intellectual skills. Whether the researchers are testing people's ability to rate the funniness of jokes, the correctness of grammar, or even their own performance in a game of chess, the duo has found that people always assess their own performance as "above average" â even people who, when tested, actually perform at the very bottom of the pile. [Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It] We're just as undiscerning about the skills of others as about ourselves. "To the extent that you are incompetent, you are a worse judge of incompetence in other people," Dunning said. In one study, the researchers asked students to grade quizzes that tested for grammar skill. "We found that students who had done worse on the test itself gave more inaccurate grades to other students." Essentially, they didn't recognize the correct answer even when they saw it. The reason for this disconnect is simple: "If you have gaps in your knowledge in a given area, then youâre not in a position to assess your own gaps or the gaps of others," Dunning said. Strangely though, in these experiments, people tend to readily and accurately agree on who the worst performers are, while failing to recognize the best performers. The most incompetent among us serve as canaries in the coal mine signifying a larger quandary in the concept of democracy; truly ignorant people may be the worst judges of candidates and ideas, Dunning said, but we all suffer from a degree of blindness stemming from our own personal lack of expertise. http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html
Amazing how luminaries are always vindicated posthumously <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CFDND9SRJbs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
good one. you see it play out with the right wingers. first they pile on the sarah palin bandwagon,once it becomes obvious to everyone she is an idiot then they pile on the bachman bandwagon, then they pile on the herman cain bandwagon now they pile on the santorum bandwagon. not a single one of them ever had leadership abilities. it is obvious the right wingers are not looking for the best candidate to lead them. they just connect on some lower emotional level.
Oh indeed, there is a response that too....this the level they connect on. Look at the posts on the right here in ET and tell me it does not apply to each and every last one of them. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zEVPSfJIQ84" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The OP proves the point of the article. Free Thinker is too stupid to recognize the stupidity in his own party.
. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html
That wouldn't happen to be due to academia being attractive to low competence liberals who are unable to prevent tainting their research with their own personal bias's would it? Silly stuff like this is why being touted an expert on anything by the MSM causes rational people to assume they are idiots until proven otherwise.