Issue 056
Confidently wrong
July 28, 2026
From me
When you outsource your own thinking, you place too much certainty in someone else's knowledge. When you mistake your confidence for competence, you place too much certainty in your own. Both lead you to be confidently wrong.
Deference to authority drives the first (hence the increasing popularity of "science-backed" and "evidence-based" on every health product and podcast you follow). The Dunning-Kruger effect drives the second.
The fix is to treat all knowledge as provisional, a core principle of Critical Rationalism. Your mental models are fallible, whether they came from a Nobel laureate, an actor in a lab coat, or the version of you standing at the peak of Mount Stupid.
From others
Charles Darwin on confusing confidence with knowledge
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
Voltaire on the allure of certainty
"Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one."
For you
What's one thing you're currently certain about that you haven't tested recently?
If this was useful, the next one will be too.
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