An in-depth look at stupidity and things that we do not know we don't know. The article by Errol Morris starts out with an interview of David Dunning, Cornell professor of social psychology.  David Dunning is one-half of the Dunning-Kruger team that wrote the paper, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing Ones Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments," was published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 77(6), Dec 1999, 1121-1134. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. Dunning and Kruger state in their paper:

When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.  Instead, . . . they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.

In other words, those who are incompetent are unable to recognize their own incompetence.

Morris presents a five-part article. The second part discusses Joseph Babinski, a prominent French-Polish neurologist who lived from 1857 to 1932.  Babinski coined the term anosognosia - taken from the Greek agnosia, lack of knowledge, and nosos, disease. Anosognosia is the unawareness of or failure to recognize one's own functional defect.

The third part discusses President Woodrow Wilson's stroke that left him paralized. President Wilson considered himself perfectly fit to be president through the denial of his incapacity.

The fourth part introduces V.S. Ramachandran and his writings on agosongnosia. Ramachandran, with Sandra Blakeslee, wrote "Phantoms in the Brain." Ramachandran is interviewed by the author of the series.

The fifth and final part of the article returns to an interview with David Dunning. David draws a Venn Diagram of cluelessness, self-deception and denial, each occupying a smaller circle inside the other. Coming full circle in his own way, Morris admits to a fondness of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and ponders if the effect is as hopeless as it seems. Is it possible for anyone to understand their limitations?