By: Toddy Littman
ChangingWind.org

The following article of February 28th is used to note what appears an inadvertent criticism, regarding voters and how we have Barack Obama as President, and, is a great commentary on the lack of any value to having an education that derives from an employee of a Public Teachers Union, such as the National Education Association (NEA).

Article Title: “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. [(1)]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. [(2)] 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. [(3)]On top of that, “very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t 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 [(4)]that people always assess their own performance as “above average” — even people who, when tested, actually perform at the very bottom of the pile. [(5)][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. [(6)]”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 you’re not in a position to assess your own gaps or the gaps of others,” Dunning said. [(7)]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.

“[(8)]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.

“[(9)]Mato Nagel, a sociologist in Germany, recently implemented Dunning and Kruger’s theories by computer-simulating a democratic election. In his mathematical model of the election, he assumed that voters’ own leadership skills were distributed on a bell curve — some were really good leaders, some, really bad, but most were mediocre — and that each voter was incapable of recognizing the leadership skills of a political candidate as being better than his or her own. [(10)]When such an election was simulated, candidates whose leadership skills were only slightly better than average always won.

“Nagel concluded that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders. Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they “effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders.”

“This story was provided by Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life’s Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.” — Bold and italic emphasis mine, quoted in whole per http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html

Remarks

1. Only George Soros, Warren Buffett, Opray Winfrey, Bill Gates, and the Progressive ilk of those who became wealthy to use it as a tool to destroy America, would disagree with this statement.

2. Apparently mental competence is tested according to those who have degrees versus those who don’t, “They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.” Now, to look closely at their example of “tax reform,” who would be an expert in that as a whole idea? Answer: Politicians. Anyone else would not be familiar with the political side of this phrase, the “reform” part, no matter how well versed they may be in taxation.

3. The Life’s Little Mysteries folks appear to have embellished the reporting of Dr. Dunning’s findings in this article. In this instance they prefaced Dunning’s findings with a term that suggest certainty of another additional encumbrance to competence. As though ones “lacking in competence,” according to them, is an escalating series of consistent negatives in a vacuum, an ailment, a disease with a particular pathology of global affect on their subject. The apparent additional commentary suggests that if a person learns, “we have oil and can drill to lower prices,” that person, who is easily able to look at what they paid at the pump the last time they filled up with gas and compare that to the week before, that this person will not be able to grasp this fact and apply it to the idea of drilling as an opportunity to lower the price. “On top of that,” is the phrase that appears an embellishment by insertion before what appears a quote of Dr. Dunning, “’very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is…’”

4. It sure does appear these Researchers haven’t had much interaction with people outside the Academia and University setting by saying this, “…that people always assess their own performance as ‘above average’…” Their stating this as a “finding” as though we need 1,001th confirmation of it, suggests it is a particular shock to what they believed, their emphasis to illustrate follows, “— even people who, when tested, actually perform at the very bottom of the pile.” This has proven to be a general truth that anyone who has had regular contact over their years amongst mankind would know without needing a study. Of course it is possible that these “educated” Researchers assumed their test would somehow change the way their subjects answered even though they already failed previous tests – the study and exposure to the Researchers would miraculously make the subjects smarter. The article mentions no impetus for any change in the subjects as a part of their study, yet they had to make sure to report the consistency of being “self-delusional” amongst their test subjects.

5. Not sure who felt the need to express an elitist superiority about this study, Dr. Dunning or Life’s Little Mysteries in the addition of this bracketed phrase (why my numbers have parenthesis to distinguish them), “[Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It].”

6. It also appears to further emphasize the point of the ignorance of the voting public, they felt it important to disclose how those the study results have deemed incompetent will then, when given the authority to do so, grade others poorly, “We found that students who had done worse on the test itself gave more inaccurate grades to other students.” This further emphasizes the Researchers’ lack of exposure to mankind.

7. The light at the end of the tunnel of course, due to being inconsistent with the Researchers’ assumptions is deemed “strange,” “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.” Apparently the test subjects were assumed to fail in every instance, and thus any showing they do not lack competence and can render critical thought is the “anomaly” to the Researchers’ great study to confirm the stupidity of the voter.

8. And thanks to the NEA this study is oozing this particular point: that it is of necessity to have learned, been educated, in a similar manner as the Researchers, to have followed in their footsteps, to be competent, and therefore, one is required to know what they know, as they know it, “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.” (Underline emphasis mine.) Finally, the whole point of this study, to emphasize how we’re all subject to the same problem, and therefore all incompetent, the social justice component purpose and therefore the Researchers’ perspective in carrying out this study now asserted, or maybe it’s just Life’s Little Mysteries who has this view. It is unclear as to whether this admission came from Dunning or from Life’s Little Mysteries, coat-tailing what Dunning said in an effort to appear as though his words.

9. The given simulation done by Mato Nagel was a use of information in abuse of the idea of “consistency,” in that there is no variable mentioned that would allow for a different outcome in using the same data repeatedly. The simulation was not a test to determine the factors that would result in a different outcome but a test to decry the absolute gravity of similarity if a simulation is run over and over with the same assumptions. No comparison to say FDR’s 4 elections, Harry Truman’s election, Eisenhower, JFK, or Reagan’s elections was done or apply the variant of information access today, along with the tuning-in and tuning-out factors. There was no correlative study provided to show how many of these users use a cell phone, computer, etc., nor to mention their primary source of information and news. “Nope, they’re just not competent,” if we take the Researchers’ word for it.

10. Apparently, according to this study, this is a bad thing, “When such an election was simulated, candidates whose leadership skills were only slightly better than average always won.” To the Researchers of this study there is a necessity to have a leader who is smarter than the People. According to the idea the People are the Masters of the American Republic, it is a matter of historical fact we aren’t out to have a leader we follow as though we’re subservient to a Dictator, and wanting to vote in a tyranny over our lives. We’re out to elect someone who comprehends Our Written Constitution and the black letter limits of government therein, that is well versed and knowledgeable in the purpose and intention of Our Founding Documents, especially the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates. The goal is to elect an Honorable servant, not a Master. We do not need government by Researchers as we see here, placing their assumptions on a pedestal of worship that they assume the rest of the world embraces and believes as well. These lack any “expertise” in a Constitutional Republic, the efforts of the People to institute a servant government by their Written Constitution, to act according to the limits imposed by the Will of The People, to have their consent, and any legitimacy. Freedom is lost by electing a “leader” willing to act in excess of the Will of the People, and the Powers the People granted to it, especially if such is to impose ideology, their “smartness” on us.

Conclusions

— This article demonstrates that, Democracy is already being attacked by the Progressive movement, that this will be the agenda of the next 4 years of Obama’s Presidency, to narrow the idea of democracy and create a criteria for assertion of the unalienable Right to vote, to assure a government “by the consent of the governed” according to the Declaration of Independence. Imagine a future where government is using incompetence to deny the presumed “minority” by previous elections their right to vote (i.e. “democracy”), and also, as their grounds to “import votes” resulting in illegal aliens being authorized to vote, a “competent voting block” because the Progressive majority in power says so.

— “Expertise,” is assumed throughout this study as a person being knowledgeable through an education provided by others, and that, without this means being utilized there is no means by which that person can know anything, they are “ignorant.” To these Researchers there is a specific and absolute difference amongst all things, and these must be learned in a very specific manner for one to claim any knowledge in them. Oddly the Researchers did not list on their résumé having run an election campaign, nor having been a statistician for one, or any other actual expertise in politics or political science, nor the hands on experience of campaign activities, including being a pollster of one sort or another. This would tend to disqualify their study entirely as the experts in running campaigns know how to ask a question or make a statement to communicate their ideas and platforms to more than those willing to listen. This is an apparent deficiency in the expertise of the Researchers that they failed to highlight.

— Radio personality Howard Stern’s Exposé of 2008 is now acknowledged and affirmed accurate, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5p3OB6roAg.

— If I were to give this study weight and were also to assume Obama stupid, while he and his party’s destruction of America is taking place and accomplishing its task, I’d say this study explains how we ended up with the most incompetent and incapable, uninformed, uncaring, and secretive President, who’s shown great “Leisureship,” in golfing and his family’s 16 vacations in his 3 years in office.