Just Stuff I thought was interesting

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Have you ever noticed how incompetent people are often incredibly confident? Meanwhile, highly-skilled folks underestimate their ability to perform. That’s called the Dunning-Kruger Effect named for Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University who published their study of the cognitive bias in a 1999 scientific paper. ABC Radio National’s The Science Show recently explored the Dunning-Kruger Effect. According to the scientists, “Overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in…

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I’m an atheist. I’m not an agnostic. I’m about to explain why — and this is going to be a very long post, so allow me to apologise beforehand if you fall asleep and end up with a keyboard imprint on your face. First of all, definitions: By “atheist”, I do not mean “person who thinks they know there are no gods”. An atheist is simply someone who lacks a belief in gods, or who actively believes that there are no gods. As for “agnostic”, I personally think the best definition is someone who thinks that the…

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The brains of shy or introverted individuals might actually process the world differently than their more extroverted counterparts, a new study suggests. About 20 percent of people are born with a personality trait called sensory perception sensitivity (SPS) that can manifest itself as the tendency to be inhibited, or even neuroticism. The trait can be seen in some children who are “slow to warm up” in a situation but eventually join in, need little punishment, cry easily, ask unusual questions or have…

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