John Cleese on How “Stupid People Have No Idea How Stupid They Are” (Otherwise Known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect)

Monty Python icon John Cleese had this to say about Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday: “She is the perfect example of someone who is not intelligent enough to realise that she’s not very intelligent. Hence her enormous self-confidence. Sadly, her supporters are even less intelligent than she is. Hence their confidence in her.” It turns out that, as Cleese further explains in the video above, there’s a scientific term for MTG’s condition–the Dunning–Kruger effect, “a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate” owing to “a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude” (and, by the same token, of “highly skilled individuals to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others”). This condition gets its name from Cornell University researchers Justin Kruger and David Dunning, the latter of whom Cleese–who has spent time at Cornell as a long-term visiting professor–counts as a friend. You can learn more about the Dunning–Kruger effect here.

Related Content 

Why Incompetent People Think They’re Amazing: An Animated Lesson from David Dunning (of the Famous “Dunning-Kruger Effect”)

24 Common Cognitive Biases: A Visual List of the Psychological Systems Errors That Keep Us From Thinking Rationally

John Cleese Revisits His 20 Years as an Ivy League Professor in His New Book, Professor at Large: The Cornell Years

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Comments (7)
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  • Douglas John Okkerse says:

    This reality dates back generations with the start of United States Presidents. It is the blind leading the blind and lambs of the world. Dictator Putin does this now.

  • George says:

    It’s not a matter of the blind leading the blind it’s a matter of stupid people in large numbers that creates the bullshit! Our founding fathers were very young when they decided enough is enough and took a stand against the largest military in the world at that time and is in no way a comparison to what Putin’s dumb ass is doing! Therefore sir you are an asshole fucktart to the highest degree for having touched the keys that typed your fucktartedness thinking shit for brains! Good day you FUCKING fucktarted dip shit!

  • Paul says:

    @George, did he touch a raw nerve? Or did the comment resonate personally?

  • Lotus says:

    My goodness such language 💋

  • J Thomas says:

    As always, Mr. Cleese is concise, erudite, and spot on.

  • Robert says:

    Reminds me of a saying I heard somewhere:

    “The thing about dying is that you don’t suffer, because you don’t know you’re dead. The people around you are the ones that suffer.

    The same goes for being stupid.”

  • Tommy says:

    Using a political figure to try to make your argument
    convincing is stupid. You could insert anyone’s name
    and essentially find the correct target audience
    and sound convincing.
    Nice try though.

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