That certainly borrows from Socrates: "I know one thing: that I know nothing."

It's an idea that recurs throughout history. We've got Socrates and Shakespeare already mentioned in the thread, to which I'll add:

W B Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, and the worst / Are full of passionate intensity."

Bertrand Russell: "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Charles Darwin: "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

the Tao Te Ching: "To know that you do not know is highest. To not know but think you know is flawed. ... The sages are without fault, because they recognize the fault as a fault".

(Semi-interestingly, I can't find anything very close to this idea in the biblical books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes -- the former sees certainty as something to aspire to, and the latter is just equally down on everyone, wise and foolish alike.)

Try Proverbs 28:26- "Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are safe." In other words, those who walk in wisdom perceive the shadow of God and humble themselves, "for the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God" (1 Cor 3:19)

Or Romans 1:22. "While claiming to be wise, they became fools." Rom 12:16 "Do not be wise in your own estimation"

Is 5:21 "Woe! Those who are wise in their own eyes, prudent in their own view!"

1 Cor 1:21 "For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation [crucifixion] to save those who have faith." Wisdom ain't all it's cracked up to be

All absolutely great quotes -- and I *still couldn't stop thinking about how much this ying/yang reminds me of the hilarious quotes from "The Sphinx" in the movie, "Mystery Men" (1999, IMDB here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132347/quotes)

For example, "He who questions training... only trains himself at asking questions."

I enjoy Asimov's tongue-in-cheek version:

> Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

>W B Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, and the worst / Are full of passionate intensity."

I always read this quote by Yeats as a lamentation about the status of the world, similar to your Russel quote that's a bit more explicit. But the Socrates quote is clearly not in this vein...

It never occurred to me before that Yeats might be more in line with Socrates than with Russell. You can read him as praising the best for their lack of conviction and condemning the worst for their passion. I like that reading much better. (Of course, I've never read the source, just heard it quoted.)

Read the source, it's rather famous.

Erich Fried wrote a poem called "Angst und Zweifel", it goes roughly like this:

    do not doubt the one
    who says he is afraid
    but be afraid of the one
    who says he knows no doubt

Is this your own translation?

Yes, I made it for the occasion :) It's a bit awkward though, "the one" would better be translated with "him"; I wanted to make it gender neutral and couldn't think of anything good. Wikiquote translates it as "Do not doubt him who tells you he is afraid, but be afraid of him who tells you he has no doubts."

I prefer yours. Nice work!

That was incredibly underconfident of Socrates.

Oh, my favorite Greek philosopher! :-)

Read the name of the OP's author. Go read your Wikipedia article. See anything? :D

Written with a tremendous amount of confidence.

Another interesting slant on this is imposter syndrome.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

I quoted Shakespeare because I admire him deeply and felt that my thoughts on the matter were relevant.

But the two statements are fundamentally different IMHO:

- Shakespeare writes of wisdom which comes in form of doubt. Only the wise men allow doubt into the conversation, hence their stance towards other parties is not aggressive and absolute, but rather flexible.

- The Dunning-Kruger effect, refers to personal biases of two categories.

However, I might be a little over-pedantic here, because comparing a study with a theatrical play can not be done in a straight way :-)

I swear this is HN's favourite bias to bring up on any topic relating to intelligence and aptitude.

Not inappropriate to bring up when the author of the original article is Dunning, though

Personally it brings me comfort to remember that maybe just maybe I'm not as stupid and mediocre as I feel most of the time.

I think the Dunning Kruger effect has been a meme/cultural/conceptual construct long enough (like the measurement of intelligence) that we need to test for a Reverse Dunning Kruger effect, where knowledge of the Dunning Kruger Effect correlates with bias in self evaluation.

Knowing about the Dunning Kruger effect makes me more inclined to ask other people how good I am at something instead of relying on my own opinion. Which I think would make my evaluation more accurate.

Do you really think Michael Jordan needs to ask anyone in order to test his basketball skills? I'm fairly sure he doesn't do that and no matter people (some people) will tell him about this or that players being better, he firmly believe that he could win them in court, in his prime. IMHO Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't work if you reverse the claim.

or it might make you more selective about who you ask for feedback?

would this be a meta-Dunning-Kruger effect? Chosing to ask only people who you know would give you positive feedback?