“Very intelligent people assume that they are rather less intelligent than they actually are;
Very stupid people believe that they are much more intelligent than they are, because they have absolutely no idea what it would feel like to be intelligent.”
The Dunning-Kruger effect—a concept from psychology named after researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger—points to a paradoxical mental blind spot in which people with lower competence tend to overrate their abilities, whereas those who are genuinely skilled or knowledgeable tend to underestimate theirs.
People who know a lot often realize just how much more there is to learn.
It is like standing on a vast beach and recognizing there is an entire ocean of untapped knowledge. The more you discover, the bigger the “ocean” seems—and the less confident you become in calling yourself a “genius.”
Meanwhile, those who truly don’t know what they are talking about may believe they are the smartest in the room.
Imagine stepping into a kiddie pool, concluding that water is barely knee-deep, and therefore thinking you are ready to join the Olympic swim team.
They lack the context to see how little they really know.