Knowing What You Don’t Know You Don’t Know
By Brian | June 21, 2010 at 12:18 PM | Comment
Errol Morris has the first part of an article up on the New York Times Opinionator page discussing “unknown unknowns,” beginning with the story of a bank robber who was too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber.
Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight. What made the case peculiar is that he made no visible attempt at disguise. The surveillance tapes were key to his arrest. There he is with a gun, standing in front of a teller demanding money. Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving. “But I wore the juice,” he said. Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.
More than just a hapless criminal story, Cornell professor David Dunning saw this as a tale of the limits of human intelligence and imagination, and began studying what became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, how our incompetence masks our ability to see our incompetence.
At the beginning of trial, the jury is full of known unknowns. Educating them about the law and our case is our first task. But what about the unknown unknowns, the backgrounds and preconceived ideas the jurors bring that will color the way they hear our arguments and reach their verdict? What about our own assumptions and ignorance?
(Via The Awl.)
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