Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Dunning-Kruger effect

(Note: this is all in response to this comment.)

Oh. Bummer.

My initial hypothesis was that you were insinuating that I suffered from the Dunning-Kruger effect and hence I was so dumb that I didn't realize that EVERYONE knew all that junk about what I wrote.

But then I was like, "Hey no way, as if, nuh-uh". And I decided that you were cleverly directing me down a path of hidden and secret knowledge, like some kind of Dan Brown novel but intellectual instead of shit, and all the clues would be hidden in wikipedia, it's just that no-one noticed before.

So I was kind of disappointed in myself that I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to figure out. And now I'm even more disappointed that you have nothing more to tell me.

So I think I'm swinging back to believe in my first hypothesis again: that you're telling me I'm dumb. Well nuh-uh!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gah! No.

I do have more to tell you. First let me say, I find your blog incredibly readable. Intellectual yet fanciful. Stupid? No. Hilarious? Yes. If you're anything like me, you need to be told you are hilarious more often than you need to be told you are smart.

My Dunning-Kruger reference was a round about method of me telling you, you were over-analysing. More accurately, extrapolating. And much more than usual, which normally I find amusing.

Gold is gold, so when you get gold, its what you get (see what I did there with that fancy pants logic, eh?) Likewise, something with a gold standard is presumably thought to be so, because what ever result you get. The result is an accurate indicator.

But you already seem to be okay with the above, so I'm not even sure why we are debating a non-debate.

Too much time spent around diagnostic scientists? Maybe...

Realistically though, after all is said and done. I'd been reading about the works of Ig-Nobel Laureates, and thought I'd share one with you, and see what you did with it.

:D Keep up the hilarious blogging!

PTR said...

Ahh - I know what you mean now. You're right, I was over-analysing. But come on, it's what I'm best at. I'm like the guy with the big shiny vaccuum who uses it to clean his driveway.

Anyway, I'm not going to make a fuss about the fact that you somehow managed to trick me into calling myself stupid...

Thanks for reading, thanks for the feedback, but most of all - thanks for being you.

Anonymous said...

PTR - three words - Glasgow Coma Scale

(Instead of Dame Joan trilling "Lah, La, La, Lah, La, La, Laa-ah" - think Billy Connelly belting out "Comma, another fecking comma, comma, comma, wham, wham")

(Note how, I've had to put all the comments in brackets so as not to trip up the word count?)

PTR said...

Yeah, Glasgow Coma Scale! I see what you mean! Wait - no I don't.

What is it with you people who just come to my blog and throw these seemingly random terms at me and make me do all the detective work? I don't even know if you're the same person as the previous Anonymous.

My best guess is that you are, and that this is your subtle way of saying that I should ignore your previous post because you made it when you were in a state of impaired consciousness. Well sorry my friend, this is the internet. We're all only semi-conscious here.

Anonymous said...

Is there a word for when a comment becomes a posting in it's own right? If not, lets coin one.

PTR said...

Good idea. Let's call it the Sacks-Anonymous effect. Sacks because Oliver Sacks frequently uses footnotes that are longer and more interesting than the main body of the text, and Anonymous because you suggested it first but didn't leave a name.