Why do the least competent people often shout the loudest?

Why does your uncle think he knows more about vaccines than an immunologist? Psychologist Timothy Gross explores the Dunning-Kruger Effect in "The Confidence of Idiots."

Gross explains the metacognitive gap: to know you are bad at something, you need the very skills you lack. Therefore, incompetent people cannot recognize their own incompetence. The book also addresses the flip side: "Imposter Syndrome," where experts underestimate themselves because they assume everyone else knows what they know.

In an era of social media experts and fake news, Gross argues that this bias is a threat to democracy and public health. He offers tools for "Intellectual Humility"— how to recognize the limits of your own knowledge and how to talk to people who are confidently wrong without losing your mind.