Stefan Mileschin

Those who know the least hold the most extreme views

A team of boffins has been researching why idiots on the internet hold the most extreme views.

People often suffer from an 'illusion of knowledge,' write the authors of a new study that finds that people who hold the most extreme views about genetically modified foods know the least

Recently, researchers asked more than 2,000 American and European adults their thoughts about genetically modified foods. Then they asked how much they thought they understood about GM foods, and a series of 15 true-false questions to test how much they actually knew about genetics and science in general.

What they found was that humans are lousy judges of how much they know.

Across four studies conducted in the U.S., France, and Germany the researchers found that extreme opponents of genetically modified foods “display a lack of insight into how much they know.” They know the least, but think they know the most.

They found that more ignorant people are more opposed to the science.

Writing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour which we get in the hope they will come up with a unified theory on Apple and Nvidia fanboys, the boffins said that those with an inflated sense of what they know and desperately need education are the ones least likely to be open to new information.

“This suggests that a pre-requisite to changing people’s views through education may be getting them to first appreciate the gaps in their knowledge,” the authors write.

https://fudzilla.com/news/47950-stup...n-of-knowledge