Dunning-Kruger and the Heinlein Corollary

Non-experts often think they’re experts, but experts think their expertise applies everywhere.

I think that at this point, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is reasonably well-known. Still, it bears repeating.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect states that a person with minimal knowledge on a topic will often consider themselves an expert. However, gaining more knowledge on that topic causes them to understand that it was more complicated than they once thought. It is generally illustrated with this chart.

A friend and I have spent the past few years talking periodically about Dunning-Kruger and its effects on the general populace. Last week, he told me about a Robert Heinlein quote that is seemingly related to Dunning-Kruger, and I felt the need to explore it a bit.

In The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Heinlein writes:

“Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.”

This, to me, is a fascinating corollary of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Someone who stands on the Plateau of Sustainability in one field may feel that way about many related fields despite being on the peak of Mount Stupid in all of them. It explains how someone with a degree in experimental physics feels qualified to speak on organic chemistry, or how someone who writes technical manuals might think that writing poetry is easy. Someone who is a master of Judo might think that Muay Thai would be easy to pick up even though they are very different.

It also explains how somebody who is trained as an osteopath can tout themselves as an expert on immunology and sell snake oil to that effect. When I see articles about doctors spouting anti-vax viewpoints, it intrigues me that many are in positions unrelated or tangentially-related to vaccination, such as surgeons. These individuals are trained in medicine, sure, but their expertise is in areas unrelated to immunology and virology.

Generally speaking, people in the modern age tend to specialize in a small range of topics, usually for work purposes, and their expertise makes them qualified in those areas. However, the desire to be knowledgeable on many different topics often drives people to comment on things they’re unqualified to talk about. I wouldn’t trust my chiropractor to give me vaccine advice any more than I would trust my mechanic to pick stocks.

However, in an era of 24/7 news and unlimited information, we are all expected to have opinions on everything at any given time. This feeds both the Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Heinlein Corollary, as people with no knowledge of a topic feel the need to sound like an expert, and people who are experts in something tangentially-related feel qualified to talk about it anyway.

So, we wind up with people who tout themselves as experts on a topic that, in reality, they’re not really qualified to talk about. Unfortunately, this is increasingly done on cable news by people with advanced degrees that, while impressive, still don’t qualify them to present themselves as experts on the topic they’re presenting.

As I’ve stated, you can trust institutions like the CDC when it comes to vaccines because they have billions of dollars and hundreds of experts with which to research and comment. Anthony Fauci has dedicated his career to studying infectious diseases and has been a major figure in his field for decades. I’m going to trust him over some guy making millions of dollars on misinformation and miracle “cures” that don’t work, even if he does have a medical degree.

Yes, Dunning-Kruger is dangerous, but so is the Heinlein Corollary. This is especially true because people claiming to be experts in a topic they’re not qualified to speak about can nonetheless gain a platform based on their unrelated expertise. Having a medical degree is impressive, but it does not necessarily qualify you to speak on all areas of medicine, just as being a science fiction novelist doesn’t make you qualified to write technical manuals for a space shuttle.

As with Dunning-Kruger, you should be wary of people claiming to be experts on a subject based on their expertise in an unrelated or semi-related field. It is possibly more dangerous than Dunning-Kruger because a so-called “expert” can flash a fancy degree or certification that seems to lend credibility despite its irrelevance to the topic at hand.

The only other thing to say is to be aware and think critically. Does a person with a degree in clinical psychology really have any standing to make sweeping statements on anthropology based on their area of study? Can a lawyer specializing in estate planning reasonably comment on returning currency to the gold standard because of their experience creating wills?

Being an expert in one topic does not make you an expert in all topics, just as ten minutes of searching on Google doesn’t make you an expert on anything. Generally speaking, we should all be wary of people asserting expertise in a given topic until credentials have been established, especially if they’re a public figure.

Don’t take my word for it, though. I’m just some guy with a technical writing degree publishing stuff based on my observations of the world. I write grants and research systemic inequality for a living, so maybe I’m completely off base here.

However, I think we’ve all met someone with some sort of fancy degree or specialization that feels the need to assert their expertise on any and every topic of conversation despite having no experience with it. So, as with anything, think critically. If it sounds like someone is blowing smoke, their pants may very well be on fire.

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