Abdurraheem Green – How wrong can you be The Dunning-Kruger effect E-Reminders

			Salam Alaikum brothers and sisters, today is a very, very interesting very important topic is going
to be short it's going to be sweet. I have given a long talk about this on my YouTube channel. So if
you if you'd like the sound of it and it's you find it interesting.
		

			You can find out more. So first thing what I want to talk about this. So what am I talking about
today I'm talking about what's called the Dunning Kruger effect. What a great name. And it's really
about ignorance. It's really the whole thing is about ignorance.
		

			And it was sparked by a
		

			the investigation into this phenomena was, was the interest was sparked by these two psychologists
Dunning and Kruger named after them.
		

			When a guy was robbed to try to rob a bank, what he did, he successfully robbed a bank.
		

			And the police caught him a few hours later.
		

			Because he'd gone in with no disguise. His face wasn't covered. He'd been picked up on CCTV, CCTV
cameras, CCTV cameras, and the guy was couldn't believe that he'd been caught.
		

			He just couldn't understand how he had been caught. And the police were trying to find out like why,
you know, what is it that you you know, why you so amazed that you got caught because your face was
all over the cameras. You just literally gave yourself away. And the guy is saying, but I had the
juice, I had the juice.
		

			Turns out that this guy thought that if you put lemon juice on his face, it would make him invisible
to cameras.
		

			Right? And that's, that's what the juice was.
		

			Obviously, you know, like there's invisible ink. Yeah. So you can you can write with lemon juice,
and it makes it invisible. And then obviously, if you heat the paper up, whatever it is you do, then
the lemon juice, you know that the ink becomes visible. And he thought that if he put lemon juice on
his face, he'd become invisible to cameras. Now how he made that connection, how he came to that
conclusion?
		

			I don't I have no idea. But the Dunning Kruger effect is named after someone who is so ignorant,
		

			that they don't even know they're ignorant. Their level of stupidity is so high, their level of
ignorance is so high. That is unbelievable to anyone who has a little bit of knowledge and a little
bit of insight and a little bit of understanding, will not be able to comprehend how a person could
get something so wrong. And this is the danger of a little bit of knowledge. And it's calling
climbing Mount stupidity. And yes, literally, I love the term, a climbing Mount stupidity. So mount
stupidity is actually a very dangerous place to be.
		

			And it's when you combine a little bit of knowledge, a very small amount of knowledge, which usually
goes hand in hand with a lot of confidence. Now the interesting thing is Dunning Kruger are
definitely not the first people to notice this effect.
		

			And the West has a really great habit. When I say great, I mean sarcastically, of loving to claim
that they've discovered things which have actually been discovered by people before them, but since
they probably don't really consider those other people to be actual real people. Since only white
western people are real people. So you know, like, when America was discovered, means when
Christopher Columbus didn't go to America did he but the pilgrim Foggo fathers or whoever they
weren't discovered America, or when Columbus discovered the West Indies, even though there were
human beings already living there for 1000s and 1000s of years. So what does it mean discovered?
		

			Then they didn't didn't discover it. You mean, they conquered it and they discovered it for Western
civilization to re
		

			and pillage and destroy?
		

			Yeah. So I mean, you know, this is a very common habit you find in, you know, in the West, in
academia, even in science, it's very, it's not a new thing, a lot of so called scientific
discoveries. I mean, we're talking especially earlier scientific discoveries had already been
discovered by Muslim scientists. In fact, many of the foundations argue will, in fact, the very
sight that that the actual scientific method itself, and there's a very strong argument put forward
that the scientific method itself was actually developed by Muslims.
		

			However, that's a diversion, because it doesn't really matter. Because this is not supposed to be a
pod, this is a podcast or a
		

			reminder, that supposed to be talking about clash of civilizations, and, you know, so on and so
forth. It's
		

			it's a, it's a journey into ourselves, it's a journey into our inner being, it is a journey, so that
we can understand more about how we function, how we often don't function, who we are,
		

			the stories we tell ourselves, how we get things wrong, and how we get things, right. And that's it,
we're, we're looking into the human psyche, we're looking into the soul, we're looking into the
heart of the human being, and that means you and me, and actually, all of us, almost without
exception, suffer from this. Now, I, you know, I did make that little prelude about Western
civilization, and loving to claim things for themselves. Because something this, this phenomena has
been noted by Muslim scholars for a long, long time, long, long time ago, and I'm sure they are not
even the first ones to discover it and discuss it, you probably the Greeks discussed it, and I mean,
		

			everyone, like who is going to think about and observe human beings would have noticed this. And
that is that so in in the Islamic tradition, they talk about it, they talk about the hands bands of
knowledge, and they talk about the firsthand span of knowledge, when someone is beginning to know,
things, they're beginning to seek knowledge, they're beginning to understand a little bit of stuff.
And almost always, people think they overestimate, hugely overestimate how much they know. So they
have this little bit of knowledge. And they think that this little bit of knowledge is a huge amount
of knowledge. They think they know it all literally know it all.
		

			And with it, unfortunately, comes a lot of confidence. You see with it comes a lot. And I say
unfortunately, because you know, you would think that that little bit of knowledge.
		

			But the thing is, the problem is, and this is the diachronic Dunning Kruger effect. The thing is,
you don't think that you have a little bit of knowledge, and this is the point. The point is you
don't you're ignorant of how ignorant you are, that's the point, you are really ignorant of how
ignorant you are, you just don't know how little you understand.
		

			And this could be of course, obviously in religious knowledge it but it could be in anything, it
could be in politics, it could be in you know, in, in studying vaccines, medicine, public health
policy, mental health, like whatever you can think of relationships,
		

			anything, any branch of knowledge that you can think of, right?
		

			So philosophy, whatever, right? So people who begin to study something very, very often, they
reached this what is called the first hand span of knowledge. And that is a lot of a little bit of
knowledge, a little bit of information, but a lot of confidence. And it is a sort of a little bit of
a case of in the land of the blind, that one eye one eyed man is king. That's a it is a little bit
of that, because in reality if a person and I mean, I don't think that in this particular instance,
the the example of the bank robber is a very good example. But certainly in the instance of students
of knowledge people, you know, moving into academia beginning to study whatever subject it may be,
		

			right, but obviously, I guess especially for us as Muslims, we would be cool
		

			sent about religious knowledge seeking religious knowledge.
		

			It may be that with a very small amount of study, you really do
		

			look like a king, you look like a scholar, you look like it compared to the general masses of people
who call themselves Muslims, whose level of religious knowledge and understanding is so low, I mean,
especially today, the baseline is so low, it's so appallingly low, you don't have to study much to
suddenly appear as if you're really really knowledgeable. And of course, that's quite dangerous.
Because in reality, you feel very confident, you feel like you know, a lot,
		

			but you don't. And so this is what is called climbing Mount stupid. And it's, it's, it's dangerous,
it is actually a really dangerous position to be in. And in a sense, it is something the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he warned us against that a time, you know, the time will come when,
generally, of course, we are warned about speaking about Allah, and his religion without knowledge.
But again, here's the problem. People who are at that stage don't know that they don't have
knowledge, they think they have knowledge, but they don't. Now, if they keep studying knowledge,
then what happens, then they will move to the second hand span of knowledge. And the second hand
		

			span of knowledge is when they begin to realize that actually, they don't know as much as they
thought they did. So now this is the beginning of developing awareness of the reality of one's
ignorance. And the fact that that little bit of knowledge that a person has,
		

			they begin to realize, actually, it wasn't that much knowledge. And so with that comes the loss of
confidence. With that comes the, you know, a beginning of being cautious, the beginning of being
really, you know, afraid to speak. And this is the reality of I have found actually the reality of
quite a lot of students of knowledge who have come out of, you know, good universities, and I'm
talking about here from an Islamic perspective.
		

			And actually Alhamdulillah, their knowledge level is really, it's good. It's not, it's not like,
it's bad. But they reached that second hand span. And, you know, they've, they've suffered this loss
of confidence, which is not an entirely bad thing, but sometimes it can be very severe, like, to the
extent that they, you know, that they, you know, they really don't want to say anything, which is
necessarily not necessarily bad, but actually, in reality, that's probably the time when we would
like them to start speaking. So the third hand span of knowledge, is when a person really does
acquire some expertise in a particular field. And almost inevitably, when a person begins to acquire
		

			expertise in a field, then then they are truly aware of the depth of their ignorance.
		

			Yeah, so that's, that's different from
		

			me, that's different from, you know, oh, maybe I thought I didn't know so much. And then you reach
the thing, where you realize you actually hardly know anything at all. And that you begin to realize
that things are nuanced, things are subtle, things tend to be quite complicated. They're not as
black and white, as you thought they were, you realize there's lots of different shades of gray.
And, you know, to be honest, I feel that as well.
		

			And this is not something that's discussed, but some people can get a little bit lost in that as
well. And to the extent that everything becomes fuzzy,
		

			and then nothing is almost you know, it's like nothing's clear anymore.
		

			And whereas in Islam generally, when we know what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that
you know that what is halal is clear and what is haram is clear, and in between those things in
between, you know, the halal and haram there are some things that are, you know, they are, they are
matters that are only known by a few people, you see, so, I mean, this is one of the blessings
actually Alhamdulillah of being
		

			Muslim that in broad terms, there are certain things that most things are very, you know, they are
quite clear, right? So we're not talking about those type of things here.
		

			But unfortunately, like I said, the bar is so low for the Muslim ummah, today, the level of
knowledge and knowledge is so paltry is so weak, that unfortunately, even some of the most basic
aspects of halal and haram people are, they're ignorant of it, it's, it's quite scary. It is quite
scary.
		

			And so anyway, this is this is the, I think the important thing from this small little reminder is
going to be very short today is, is humility,
		

			to approach when you approach knowledge, approach with humility, and be aware of this effect, if you
realize, I mean, once I think generally once you've realized that once, once you realize that once
and you've studied something in some degree of depth, and you realize then you went through this,
you climbed Mount stupidity, and then you came down from Mountain stupidity, you reached into the
secondhand secondhand span of knowledge. So once you've done that, especially if you've become
really competent in a particular branch of knowledge, then I mean, it's not always the case that
because you've experienced that in one field, you'll experience it in another. But generally, I
		

			think that if a person has reached that level, they will understand that this is the reality of any
field. And that generally, they will, you know, hopefully not really fall into that problem again.
		

			So the lesson is,
		

			become an expert in something, because that's one really good way to avoid the Dunning Kruger
effect. Because when you reach that level of expertise, and I'm saying when you reach that third
hand span of knowledge, when you realize when you begin to realize, or you do realize that you are
really ignorant, and the you actually know, really very little, and that things that are just
generally complicated. And the more you study it, the more you realize that and the more you know,
the more you know that you don't know.
		

			Yes, that's a good place to be. That's where we really want to be. And that's a beautiful way in
that studying knowledge does humbled you it makes you humble.
		

			And the pursuit of knowledge brothers and sisters is just to remind you of its great virtue. And the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that whoever takes a path,
		

			seeking knowledge that Allah will make it easy for them the path to paradise. I hope that today
		

			whoever is listening, and whoever is watching, and obviously could be any day because the amazing
thing about this is, hopefully in 10 years time, people might still be listening to this. So if you
are and you're pursuing knowledge, and you're on the path of seeking knowledge, well inshallah this
listening to this video is being on the path of seeking knowledge. So I pray that Allah makes easy
for you the path to paradise brothers and sisters, and beware
		

			of the firsthand span of knowledge, and beware of the juice and thinking that you have the juice
when you don't, and you don't even know really what the juice is because you're so
		

			cute. Don't be like that unfortunate guy. All right, brothers and sisters. It's been a pleasure
until next time as Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh