GM opponents know the least but think they know the most

The Guardian reports:

The most extreme opponents of genetically modified foods know the least about science but believe they know the most, researchers have found.

This explains the success of the Green Party.

The results from more than 2,500 respondents revealed the curious trend. “What we found is that as the extremity of opposition increased, objective knowledge went down, but self-assessed knowledge went up,” Fernbach said.

Can we get MPs to do this test?

The finding has echoes of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the observation from social psychology that incompetence prevents the incompetent from recognising their incompetence.

It’s the environmental equivalent.