When Donald Trump said that he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose any of his hard core supporters, he was on to something.

You cannot reason with a certain subset of the population. There is no argument, no set of facts that will sway them. 
Why?
To be blunt,, Some of these people just aren't very smart.

Why does reason not work?
Well, If you're incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.… The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize that you were wrong in the first place. Catch 22.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is.

Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of those of low ability to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their ability accurately.  A great example: people with absolutely no background in the sciences, who have done no reading on the subject,  not doubting that climate change exists, but rather dismissing climate science with absolute certainty as a hoax. I don't know what is more troubling, the ignorance or the arrogance.

Their research also suggests a corollary: high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others. Thus we overestimate the competence of others, for the reason cited, and also because it is very undiplomatic to judge another as not being very intelligent. There is quite a high social cost to that.

Dunning and Kruger have postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in those of low ability, and external misperception in those of high ability: "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."



Are Trump Supporters Too Dumb To Know They’re Dumb? Science Says “Probably”

How the hell can anybody call themselves intelligent when they’re supporting Donald Trump? It’s a question that baffles people who are able to think critically, able to read and comprehend both history and current events, and able to see through Trump’s thin façade of know-it-all-ism and deep into what he is – an ignorant, narcissistic, and dangerous conman.

Trump supporters not only don’t see this, they’re happy that there’s someone running for president that thinks exactly like them. Take Melanie Austin, of Brownsville, Pennsylvania. She thought her beliefs about Obama being a gay Muslim from Kenya and Michelle being transgender were just fringe beliefs – right up until she started hearing similar stuff from Trump and other right-wing extremists.

Now she knows she’s right about all of this. You can’t tell her that she’s ignorant and dumb if she can’t figure this out for herself. You can’t tell her she’s delusional. You can sit there with her, and countless others like her, and present facts, figures, charts, studies, and more, all from the most reputable sources there are, and prove that her lord and savior is wrong, and you’ll still get shot down.

There’s more to this than the problem of confirmation bias. Austin gets much of her information from fringe right-wing blogs and conspiracy sites, but that’s not all of it. Many of Trump’s supporters are seriously too dumb to know they’re dumb. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect, and it’s an unshakeable illusion that you’re much smarter, and more skilled and/or knowledgeable, than you really are.

People like Austin labor under the illusion that their knowledge about things is at least as good as, if not better than, the actual facts. For these people, though, their knowledge isn’t just superior – it’s superior even to those who have intimate and detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. Trump himself has exemplified this countless times, such as when he claimed he knows more about ISIS than even our military generals do.

His fans simply take his word for it, and believe that because he knows, they know. They are literally incapable of seeing that they don’t know.

(Disclaimer to Trump supporters. Yes, I realize that there are unintelligent people all along the political spectrum)
To be sure, the Dunning-Kruger effect is present everyone all across the political spectrum, and indeed, in every walk of life. We all overestimate our abilities and knowledge somewhere. However, the effect is especially pronounced in people with limited intellectual and social skills:

“People who are unskilled in [intellectual and social 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.”

http://addictinginfo.org/2016/10/02/are-trump-supporters-too-dumb-to-know-theyre-dumb-science-says-probably/

Last edited by Goose (10/03/2016 6:34 am)