EASTER: What We Don’t Know

Do you know how smart you are? Recently, I came across a research study called “Dunning-Kruger Effect,” which is about the cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It means those who are less intelligent tend to believe they are smarter than others. It humbles me because it makes me realize that I am not that smart at all. What a discovery!

It began with a bank robbery case in Pittsburgh in 1995, where this man robbed two banks in a row in broad daylight without even covering his face. He learned from somewhere that if you wear lemon juice on your face, the security camera could not capture his face. So, when the police showed him the video from the surveillance cameras, he couldn’t believe it was real. He thought it was a setup, saying, “It’s impossible. I wore the juice.”

You might have heard about that case. The stupidity of that bank robber triggered the curiosity of social psychologists to study how people evaluate their own intelligence. Professors David Dunning and Justin Kruger published their discovery in 1999, and that’s why it’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The research found that most people overestimate their abilities and think they are above average, but their test scores prove far lower than they assumed. The researchers say that way to overcome stupidity is to gain more knowledge because the more you learn, the more you discover that you know so little.

The key concept is “We know what we know, but we don’t know what we don’t know.” It’s more profound than it sounds. For example, if I have read 100 books. I know my knowledge is within these 100 books. So, I know what I know. But I don’t know how many books are still there to learn. It could be thousands or even millions. So, I don’t know what I don’t know.

The difference is that smart people have discovered that their ability is like a drop of water in a vast ocean. Stupid people think their ability is like 80% of water in a small teacup. They think they just need to learn a little bit more to know everything.

When you reach the point of humility to be able to say, “I don’t know what I don’t know,” you are getting pretty smart.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian who plotted to assassinate Hitler, wrote a famous stupidity theory. He said that stupidity is more dangerous than evil. We can expose evil and find a way to confront it, but we are defenseless when dealing with a stupid person. We cannot reason with them or convince them, and they can be senseless and dangerous.

When Jesus was on the cross, he prayed to God, saying,

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34c).

This prayer indicates that their problem is not innocent but ignorant. Ignorance is so dangerous that it could put innocent people on the cross. All the research studies show arrogance is the root of ignorance. The foundation of wisdom is humility.

In that case, Easter humbles us significantly because it opens a can of worms by broadening our sphere of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” It reveals that what we don’t know is not just here and now but also an eternity to discover. Someone said, “I feel my brain expand as I think about Easter.” It’s a great metaphor.

We read about how Easter changed the lives of a group of simple-minded disciples and turned them from zeros to heroes. If we look at history, the message of Easter expanded the intelligence and imagination of the believers for two thousand years and advanced human civilization beyond limits.

So, today, let’s explore how Easter makes us feel like a drop of water in a vast ocean and how such humility expands our IQ, EQ, and SQ—our Intelligent Quotient, Emotional Quotient, and Spiritual Quotient. Let’s begin!