Combatting Meta-Ignorance in Science Through Dialogs with Diverse Experts

Abstract

In their provocative paper, Shiffrin, Stigler, and Keil (SSK) declare that scientists have illusions of understanding the phenomena they study “more deeply” than they really do. In this comment I grant their claim a degree of truth and focus on the nature of illusions of understanding. These are a form of meta-ignorance (not knowing what you don’t know). This comment briefly describes the psychology behind meta-ignorance and how it may be combatted. A crucial property of meta-ignorance is that it is impossible for us to attribute meta-ignorance to our here-and-now selves. It can only be detected by others, but probably not by those who share our views and expertise. Instead, it will most likely be detected by those who think differently from us. Thus, ridding ourselves of meta-ignorance about our scientific understanding requires dialogs with scholars whose backgrounds, expertise, and/or orientations differ from our own.