Have you ever been listening to someone blab on about something you know nothing about, yet you still try to contribute to the conversation? Welcome to the age of overconfidence, says David Dunning, a professor at Cornell University. Dunning reflects on overconfidence through our predisposition to be ready to talk knowingly about things that we know nothing about.

"There's actual science behind that phenomenon, argues Cornell professor David Dunning. He's recreated similar experiments in the lab, asking subjects about fictitious political figures, for example, or nonexistent cities—and gets much the same results as the late night hosts do. Dunning says, "What we find is that people are quite ready to start talking about things they can't possibly know anything about because we made that thing up in our office just the week before."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Truly, our pride leads us to foolish places sometimes. Why are we so slow to listen and learn?

Source:

Mary Dooe, “Why we're all overconfident,” PRI.org (3-23-15)