June 21, 2010
But I wore the juice!
Errol Morris dissects the implications of an incredulous bank robber, stunned at his arrest because he had, in fact, smeared his face with lemon juice before the heist.
Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.
And introduces us to David Dunning, a Cornell professor of social psychology who investigated the robberies for their implications in understanding our stupidity:
As Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him, an epiphany. If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.
(via marginal revolution)
comments
Leave a Reply
This article on the Dunning-Kruger Effect just got delicious tagged under “teaching” and “education.” Pretty sure this explains a lot about my 9-5.
I’m sure each of us have our own particular tags for it . . . .