Unskilled and Unaware of It

Socrates once said "Only thing I know is I know nothing". Centuries has passed in vain without that wisdom embedded in our genes. Humility, epistemological modesty et al are sine qua non of humanity. We will be making a fool out of ourselves without it. Having said that it's very difficult to come out the illusion of omnipotence unless that famous metacognition lends us its helping hand.  Metacognition will not lend us it helping hand unless we have an open mind and to have an open mind we have to come out the illusion. Well, good luck to anyone who wants to come out this quagmire. But the mere thought of understanding this makes one humble and has crossed half way through.

Or else please read this (one of the best papers I have ever read - "Dunning-Kruger Effect") paper by Justin Kruger and David Dunning (interview here) - Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments:

Abstract:
"People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The au- thors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overes- timated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacogni- tive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of partici- pants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities."

Excerpt:
"Prediction 1. Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overesti- mate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria.

Prediction 2. Incompetent individuals will suffer from deficient metacognitive skills, in that they will be less able than their more competent peers to recognize com- petence when they see it—be it their own or anyone else's.

Prediction 3. Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more competent peers to gain insight into their true level of performance by means of social comparison information. In particular, because of their difficulty recognizing competence in others, incompetent individu- als will be unable to use information about the choices and performances of others to form more accurate im- pressions of their own ability.

Prediction 4. The incompetent can gain insight about their shortcomings, but this comes (paradoxically) by making them more competent, thus providing them the metacognitive skills necessary to be able to realize that they have performed poorly."

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”
-Charles Darwin