Consequences of Ignorance
Individuals with superficial knowledge of a topic or subject may be worse off than people who know absolutely nothing. As Charles Darwin observed, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
Ignorance can stifle learning, in that a person who falsely believes he or she is knowledgeable will not seek out clarification of his or her beliefs, but rather rely on his or her ignorant position. He or she may also reject valid but contrary information, neither realizing its importance nor understanding it. This concept is elucidated in Justin Kruger's and David Dunning's work, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," otherwise known as the Dunning–Kruger effect.
Read more about this topic: Ignorance
Famous quotes containing the words consequences of, consequences and/or ignorance:
“If you are prepared to accept the consequences of your dreams ... then you must still regard America today with the same naive enthusiasm as the generations that discovered the New World.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Results are what you expect, and consequences are what you get.”
—schoolgirl’s definition, quoted in Ladies’ Home Journal (New York, Jan. 1942)
“Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers, which MALICE will not blacken, and which IGNORANCE cannot misrepresent.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)