Garth Heckman

The David Alliance

[email protected] 

Talking to a young man lately who plays guitar and he plays on a worship team. I told him I was going to be teaching a short 2 hour class to the guitar players at our church… he interrupted me and said “I am a good guitar player… And they he said it again as if I did not believe him. I kindly nodded. Now he can play guitar and he can play some rock songs… but who knows if someone is good or not right? But when he asked me what exactly I was going to be teaching my guitar players on my worship team - the first thing I said was “Diatonic harmony”… which believe it or not if you are in fact a good guitar player you would know what that is. He stared at me blankly and asked what it was. I kindly assured him he was not in fact a good guitar player. Now I have told this young man as I tell many people - You may not like what I say to you, but I will never lie to you! EVER. I will try to say it nice… most of the time - but who else will be honest with you. And today what if you can’t be honest with yourself because… well you just can’t. Have you ever heard of the

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Blindness

of the Incompetent

Wheeler's lemon juice story inspired researchers David Dunning and

Justin Kruger to study this phenomenon in greater detait. The research-ers were intrigued by the obvious difference in people's actual abilities and how they perceive these abilities. Dunning and Kruger hypothesized

that incompetent people suffer from two types of problems

· Due to their incompetence, they make flawed decisions (such as

robbing a bank while covered in lemon juice).

· They are unable to realize the fact that they make Flawed decisions.

(Not even the video footage convinced wheeler of hjs inability to be

invisible he claimed that it was faked )

The researchers tested the validity of these hypotheses on a sample

of participants. First they laid out a test measuring their abilities in a

certain domain (logical reasoning, grammar, and humor). Then, the par-

ticipants were asked to assess how good their abilities were. The research-

ers discovered two interesting findings

The least competent people (labeled incompetent in the research) had

a tendency to significantly overestimate their abilities. In fact, the

less competent they were, the more they overestimated themselves.

For example, the more painfully unfunny an individual was, the

funnier they thought they were. this eftect was elegantly described

by Charles Darwin years ago ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge'

The second interesting finding was that the most competent participants had a tendency to underestimate their abilities. Their under-

rated results can be explained by the fact that if a task seems easy to

them, they will have the feeling that the task is easy even for other

people.

In another part of the experiment, participants had the possibility to

review the test results of other people. They were subsequently asked to

conduct a self assessment again. Competent participants realized that they were better off than they had thought. Thus, they modified their self assessments and began to

evaluate themselves more objectively.

So where am I going with this… David says something profound in Psalm 139:23-24 KJV. Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

David is not saying this as a type of challenge to God… ok, God see if you can find anything wrong in me. NO NO NO he is saying it as one who realizes he can’t see everything in his life clearly. 

He knows that he is blind to many of the sins, flaws, inconsistencies and choices he makes that are not Godly.

WHAT A POWERFUL INSIGHT TO KNOW YOU DONT HAVE INSIGHT. RIGHT? 

Meaning, how powerful it is to know that you don’t know everything -especially about you.