Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Dunning-Kruger effect in fighting aka "Just punch 'em in the face"


As a result of my passion for martial arts, I find myself a frequent observer of live Mixed-Martial-Arts events. Without fail, there are always martial art experts there that shout golden bit of knowledge such "Stand up and fight like a man!" and "Use the muay Thai!" While I appreciate the enthusiasm of these fans that they wish to impart their wisdom, their words are rather futile. It would be similar for me viewing a basketball event whilst screaming "Put the ball in the basket!" or "Get the ball from that end of the court to the other!" I would be correct fundamentally in my endeavored goading but I am sure the players on the court could easily do the actions without my support.
What I mean to highlight though in my observation of this phenomenon is that it is a clear example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. According to Wikipedia, "the DK effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes." Essentially, because of one's inexperience in a particular area of study, one does not realize the actual difficulty of that field. Let's consider that one could view a cooking show on television. The dish looks appetizing and delicious so one sets out to emulate the TV chef's work. However upon practical approach, one realizes that what appears simple to an expert is actually quite a layered and complex task. So I do not fault the audience martial art experts. They simply do not know how wrong they are and that it is quite difficult to accomplish any muay Thai techniques on the ground. That is why I propose the idea of a new organization called the AFC or Armchair Fighter Challenge. In this organization, loudmouth audience members could do battle with each other. So all parties at play could see exactly how easy it is to stand up and fight like a man. That's all for today. Now if you excuse me, I am about to attend a cricket match equipped with my sign that states "Hit the ball thingy with the paddle thingy."

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