Ever wonder why conservatives act the way they do? Turns out they may all be suffering from a well-documented psychological phenomenon that makes them think they’re super smart, while they are, in fact, idiots.

An unrelated post on Kottke.org drew my attention to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, or the tendency for individuals with little knowledge to systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge. Individuals experiencing the Dunning-Kruger Effect consistently fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy, and vastly overestimate their skills. Or, in the slightly more poetic phrasing of Charles Darwin, “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

The Dunning-Kruger Effect would explain Rove, Cheney and Bush’s single-minded determination to invade Iraq, despite reams of contradictory evidence. They were convinced of their genius status, and knew way more than all those intelligence analysts and academics. Unfortunately, whilst in the thrall Dunning-Kruger, they failed to recognize that they were actually morons.

Here are some other things potentially explained by the Dunning-Kruger Effect:

• Stephen Harper’s climate change plan;
• The Bush Administration’s denial that global warming even exists;
• ‘New’ Coke;
• The last federal Liberal election campaign;
• Anything Bill O’Reilly has ever said; and
• Ezra Levant’s entire life so far.

Better living through psychology. This is what makes many conservatives so dangerous- the profound confidence they have all the answers, without any intelligence, insight or actual solutions to back it up.

Ah, the Tunguska Event. In 1908, it levelled trees, vaporized wildlife and lit up the skys over Siberia. It has also baffled scientists, since the explosion was thought to have dug no crater.

Until now.

A group of Italian scientists have found a lake occupying a small, bowl-shaped depression near the epicentre of the blast. Lake Cheko was likely created when a small fragment of the original meteor struck the ground. The majority of the meteor was destroyed by the airburst explosion that knocked down trees and terrified eyewitnesses- a blast equivalent to 20 million tonnes of TNT.

The theory is controversial. Dr Gareth Collins, a research associate at Imperial College London, UK, said:

“The impact cratering community does not accept structures as craters unless there is evidence of high temperatures and high pressures. That requires evidence of rocks that have been melted or rocks that have been ground up by the impact.”

According to Collins, the crater is too shallow and lacks the tell-tale ‘flap’ of debris around the rim. It’s also elliptical, which is strange.

More to the point: where is the ‘impact cratering community’, and how do I join?

Interesting new research out of UC Berkeley that suggests ‘hegemonic’ society- middle class, affluent and predominantly white- hang out on Facebook, while the poor and marginalized are at home at MySpace.

The study was prepared by Danah Boyd, a PhD student at Berkeley. Here’s a tidbit:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

An interesting hypothesis, but I find the paper a bit short on evidence. It’s anecdotal and doesn’t provide much in the way of hard data. Still, an important first step in exploring how social structures reproduce themselves in the online world.

I’m also distressed that my own personal social networking site, “Graemester”, is not profiled. The demographic is easy to pin down- exclusively white, about 6’2″, bald, vaguely sarcastic males.

The impact of the first jet into the World Trade Centre has been simulated by scientists at Purdue Universitty. Technically impressive, conceptually terrifying.

This might make a few conspiracy theorists re-think their ‘inside job’ theories. The damage in this simulation looks pretty catastrophic.

Simmering away like some evil stew, this story has been knocking around for a few weeks now. If you missed it (entirely possible, since it has been largely absent from the Canadian press), Rupert Murdoch, owner of NewsCorp and current front-runner for scariest Australian ever, made an unsolicited $5 billion bid for Dow Jones, parent company of the Wall Street Journal. This would be an impressive addition to a $70 billion media empire that includes dozens of newspapers, magazines, MySpace, satellite services, and the worst news network ever, Fox News.

The most vexing thing about the proposed takeover is not the undercurrents of media concentration, although that is disturbing. Rather, it is the fact nobody seems to have any idea what he’s going to do with the venerable WSJ. Murdoch’s media holdings run the gammut from tabloid to prestige press, from salacious to serious. Murdoch’s outlets also tend to align themselves with the political party in power. This isn’t political. It’s about ensuring the most favourable market conditions for Murdoch to make a mint. The NewsCorp profit motive thus leads to contradictory results. On the one hand, The Sun  reversed its decades-old tradition of opposing leftist parties and supported Tony Blair and New Labour into power. On the other, Fox News is the most shameless of all the Bush-boosters in the American media. Whoever can help Murdoch make money becomes the darling of his media empire, and the immense communicative power of NewsCorp often translates into votes.

This kind of media-as-leverage for interference in the political system is a real problem. While there is no guarantee Murdoch will run the WSJ like his other holdings, the danger is real. And odds are, a Murdochized WSJ will support the pro-corporation, anti-citizen agenda (you know, the one hiding behind the fundamentalist christian agenda) of the small cabal now in charge of the Republican Party. And as anyone with any concern for our future sustainability as a species, this can only be a bad thing.

Citizens in the USA need to start paying more attention to Murdoch sniffing around their media. I think we can all agree one Fox News is more than enough.

Following the delightful trend of quantifying every aspect of your personality through an internet quiz, here’s one that lets you figure out what kind of lefty you are.

I would have figured I’d be ‘disillusioned’. But turns out I’m actually the far-cooler sounding social justice crusader.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.

Take the quiz at www.fightconservatives.com

One problem with this quiz: there is no “you are not a lefty” category. Also, it doesn’t automatically detonate a computer logging in from the Western Standard offices.

H/T to Uncorrected Proofs.

…by airing almost three decades worth of dirty laundry.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has announced the the spy firm wil de-classify reams of document detailing its not-so-legal activities. Look forward to overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping, infiltration of leftist groups, break-ins, wiretapping of journalists, and ‘unwitting’ drug tests on U.S. civilians- collectively referred to by spooks as the CIA’s ‘family jewels’. Basically, all that stuff you new was going on but could never prove.

Allegedly, these abuses were stopped in the mid-1970s, as politicians became worried that disclosure of the family jewels would be ‘worse than Watergate’.

Said Hayden:

Most of it is unflattering, but it is CIA’s history. Unfortunately, there seems to be an instinct among some in the media today to take a few pieces of information, which may or may not be accurate, and run with them to the darkest corner of the room.

PR exercise or genuine attempt to be a kinder, gentler, dare I say it, democratic intelligence agency? Difficult to say. But what I really want to know is how they turned Matt Damon into a badass assassin. Or perhaps where I can get Franka Potente‘s phone number.