You Dont Know What You Dont Know

And That Makes You Think That You

Know It.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect Strikes Again!
by Tyler Vela
For those who have been around the Theist/Atheist
debates, the term Dunning-Kruger Effect may be a term
that is familiar and yet undefined for many of you. For those of you who are not familiar with the
term, let me briefly describe what it is.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is the thesis put forward by two Cornell University
psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger. Through various experiments on lab rats (i.e.
undergrad students) they attempted to show that there exists a certain kind of cognitive bias
whereby certain unskilled individuals tend to assess their abilities and skills as higher than
what they actually are. The researchers credit this increased confidence to a metacognitive
inability for them to recognize their own lack of ability. Some people mistakenly think that DKE
just means that someone is wrong but thinks that they are right. That is an incomplete
understanding of the thesis. DKE goes further and postulates that it is precisely the skills that one
would have learned had they been properly educated or trained in a field, that are the exact skills
one would need in order to identify the fact that they are unskilled in said field in the first place.
As Dunning so succinctly put it, If youre incompetent, you cant know youre incompetent
the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a
right answer is.1 In other words, unskilled people fail to realize that they are unskilled because
one of the skills which they lack is precisely the skill needed to differentiate between skilled and
unskilled in a given field. Its a tongue twister, I know. Many of you may have engaged with
people in discussion or debate and been so frustrated by their apparent lack of understanding
coupled with their simultaneous overestimation of their own skill or knowledge, and yet you
were not able to describe exactly what was going on. Well, what you were observing was likely
the DKE in effect.
The list that I am about to give you is the DKE indicators and the justifications presented by
Dunning and Kruger.2 3 You will notice that each indicator is then expanded upon and clarified
within a corresponding footnote. These indicators function much more like a spectrum of
severity that a person could fall somewhere along, and thus someone could suffer from DKE to
greater or lesser degrees depending on the field in question. The idea is that the more of these
indicators a person exhibits, and to a stronger degree, the more probable it is that such a person is
suffering from DKE.

Morris, Errol (20 June 2010). "The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)".
New York Times.
2
Kruger & Dunning, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing Ones Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated
Self-Assessments, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (77.6.1132), 1999
3
The layout for these indicators and the footnotes with the references I am getting from J. Burke at
https://bibleapologetics.wordpress.com/tag/intellectual-honesty/

Skill-boundary transgression: The individual is seeking to operate as an authority or

qualified individual, in a field beyond their personal level of academic and professional
qualification.4

Self-identified authority: The individual identifies themselves as sufficiently competent to

comment authoritatively on the subject.5

Unrecognized competence: The individuals self-assessed competence is not recognized by

those who are academically and professional competent.6

False peers: The individual believes that the favorable commentary of other unskilled and
non-professional individuals, indicates they themselves are sufficiently qualified.7

Scrutiny avoidance: The individual fails to submit their work for professional scrutiny (such
as in the relevant scholarly literature), for review by those genuinely qualified.8

Pioneer complex: The individual self-identifies as a pioneer uncovering previously unknown

or unrecognized facts; a Copernicus or Galileo.9

Conspiracy claims: The individual explains opposition by qualified professionals as a

coordinated attempt to suppress truth, in order to defend the existing scholarly consensus.10

Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and
performance relative to objective criteria., ibid., p. 1122; the importance of formal academic and professional qualifications is
that they constitute objective criteria by which competency can be assessed, so we should place less trust in those lacking such
qualifications.
5
These findings suggest that unaccomplished individuals do not possess the degree of metacognitive skills necessary for
accurate self-assessment that their more accomplished counterparts possess., ibid., p. 1122; we cannot rely on those who are not
academically and professionally qualified in a particular field, to assess accurately their own authority and competence in that
field.
6
We propose that those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions
and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to recognize it., p. 1132;. it is far more likely that an
unqualified non-professional will be wrong in a given field of specialization, than a qualified professional whose competency has
been recognized formally by their equally qualified peers
7
Second, the bungled robbery attempt of McArthur Wheeler not withstanding, some tasks and settings preclude people from
receiving self-correcting information that would reveal the suboptimal nature of their decisions (Einhorn, 1982)., ibid., p. 1131;
by keeping themselves predominantly in the intellectual company of those who agree with them, individuals experiencing the
Dunning-Kruger Effect place themselves in a setting which typically prevents their errors being exposed, instead keeping them in
a kind of intellectual echo chamber in which their views are reinforced by being repeated back to them with approval by those
unqualified to assess them competently.
8
One reason is that people seldom receive negative feedback about their skills and abilities from others in everyday life
(Blumberg, 1972; Darley & Fazio, 1980; Goffman, 1955; Matlin & Stang, 1978; Tesser & Rosen, 1975), ibid., p. 1131;
avoidance of scrutiny by professionals enhances this effect, keeping the unqualified away from those who are best able to expose
their errors, and preserving their self-delusion that they are correct.
9
This is a self-delusional identification since neither Copernicus nor Galileo were gifted amateurs opposing a body of
professionals (both men were professionals, holding formal teaching positions), and Galileo in particular knew that the subject
should be decided by professionals astronomers, placing no value whatsoever on the opinions of the unqualified; writing against
the papal edict silencing publications on heliocentrism in the preface of his Dialogue (1632), Galileo scorned the unqualified
amateur: Complaints were to be heard that advisors who were totally unskilled in astronomical observations ought not to clip the
wings of reflective intellects by means of rash prohibitions., Galileo, quoted in Nss, Galileo Galilei: When the Earth Stood
Still, p. 131 (2005).
10
Third, even if people receive negative feedback, they still must come to an accurate understanding of why that failure has
occurred. The problem with failure is that it is subject to more attritional ambiguity to success. For success to occur, many things
must go right: The person must be skilled, apply effort, and perhaps be a bit lucky. For failure to occur, the lack of any one of
these components is sufficient. Because of this, even if people receive feedback that points to a lack of skill, they may attribute it

Allocentric11 claims of bias: The individual explains the difference between their views and
those of qualified professionals, as the result of inherent bias on the part of the professionals;
accusations of bias are directed at anyone other than themselves, and they claim objectivity.

Dealing with someone suffering from DKE can be quite maddening at times. I have been
dealing with a person for quite a while now whom I suspect is a likely candidate for such a
diagnosis. Before I begin to evaluate the public statements made by this individual, I want to first
preface by saying that I am not a trained psychologist and this is not an attempt at a diagnosis. I
do not pretend to be qualified to make such a strong evaluation of this individual. Rather what
follows are simple facts about the kinds of actions and statements that this person publicly
presents which lead me to think that the DKE is likely a robust explanation for these features of
their public and published statements. It is a framework that seems to fit well with the majority
of the data.
I am also not intending this to be insulting, though I am fairly certain that it may come across
harsh and discourteous. However I do not intend it as such. The DKE does not mean that a
person is unintelligent. I am fully convinced that this individual is quite intelligent, which is
partly what leads to the frustration. Very intelligent individuals can suffer from DKE. DKE
applies to areas where an individual is unskilled or has not undergone adequate or comprehensive
academic or technical training to merit their level of confidence in their assertions on the topic or
about actual experts in that field. So I do not mean this as a slight against this persons character
or to insinuate that they are unintelligent or immoral. It is simply that in their public statements
and published writings they have exhibited every trait of DKE, often to an extreme degree, which
leads me to confirm the experience of myself and others that this persons bias eliminates their
ability to engage rationally or objectively on issues relating to religion, philosophy, science or
any relation between them.
In addition to this, this person seems to be developing a rather large following where DKE is
not only present en masse, but also appears to be forming a kind of group rhetoric and tribal
defense that insulates them from ever having their bias challenged. Groupthink and the positive
social conditioning and reinforcement that it brings is such a strong insulation from criticism that
it could keep a deluge of reason and rational arguments out.12 That is why the intention of this
article is not meant to be insulting but rather illuminating. However, because of the DKE
operating within the aforementioned group, it is hard to imagine, as we will see shortly, that
anything but the most hostile and vitriolic rhetoric will be launched in response to its publication.
The person I am speaking of is, as many may have likely guessed from recent activity in the
forums, no other than David G. McAfee. Without going into the long history that exists between
to some other factor (Snyder, Higgins, & Stucky, 1983; Snyder, Shenkel, & Lowry, 1977)., ibid., p. 1131; when an unqualified
non-professional attributes opposition to or dismissal of their theories by qualified professionals as a conspiracy to maintain the
intellectual status quo, the Dunning-Kruger effect is very likely responsible: an example is the Science and Public Policy Institute
(a non-profit group in the US which opposes the scientific consensus on global warming), People who are not scientists, or even
experts on the subjects they write about often write the SPPI reports, and many convey conspiratorial themes. For example, an
SPPI publication by Joanne Nova, who describes herself as a freelance science presenter, writer, & former TV host,
exemplifies not only the Dunning-Kruger effect (Dunning et.al. 2003), but also the inactivist movements frustration with
mainstream climate science and its inflated sense of victimhood., Elshof, Can Education Overcome Climate Change
Inactivism?, Journal for Activism in Science and Technology Education (3.1.25), 2011.
11
Allocentric means focused on others, or aimed at others.
12
Here I am also very well aware that DKE can also be quite problematic within the Christian tradition to which I belong,
especially in the more fundamentalistic varieties of it. I state this so that no one can be confused that I somehow think that
Christians are immune and that this is only a problem for atheists.

him and me, or some of the rather disreputable tactics employed by McAfee and his followers as
of late which many of you have observed, I would rather like to go through this list and pull out
some of McAfees own comments or actions that reveal why I think that DKE is a likely
framework through which to understand his ministry of unbelief. If you believe that I am
mistaken on any of these, please feel free to respond in the comments below.13 It should also be
noted that this is not an exhaustive list, but rather a sampling of statements, memes and posts that
typify the kind of rhetoric and statements that McAfee commonly makes.
1. Skill-boundary transgression: The individual is seeking to operate as an authority or
qualified individual, in a field beyond their personal level of academic and professional
qualification.
We need not go very far beyond McAfees own published work to find examples of his self
perception on his qualifications to address the field of Religious Studies (let alone Theology,
History, Science, Philosophy, Sociology, and the panoply of other fields to which he attempts
to speak). In his book Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings, McAfee writes,
As an American scholar of Religious Studiesas opposed to TheologyI am accustomed
to studying religions and their various effects on society (positive and negative) from an
objective point of view.14 For anyone with even a modicum of experience with the academic
world, for an undergraduate to claim to be a scholar is beyond nonsensical. Not only that,
but to do so within a book that so clearly exhibits an inability to hold anything like the
objective point of view that he claims to possess,15 is one of the stronger reasons to view
McAfee as possessing a skill-boundary transgression.16 The fact that his fans and those in the
Atheistic Fundamentalist movement invite him to speak at conferences as an authority,
despite lacking any adequate education or qualifications, speaks more about the groups than
anything else. Sadly this may reinforce McAfees resolve that he is, in fact, an educated
authority as we will see next.
2. Self-identified authority: The individual identifies themselves as sufficiently competent to
comment authoritatively on the subject.
This falls in line with the issue above. Yet on this point the problem is that for so long
McAfee was a self-professed scholar even though he had not completed any level of
academic training beyond undergraduate work, never published in peer reviewed journals,

13

Note that hostile name calling, insults, mockery, and anti-theistic rhetoric do not qualify as reasonable or well argued
responses. They are just the grunts and moans of those who are incapable of discourse. G.K. Chesterton once wrote, It is
generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Dover Publications. 2009. p78.
14
McAfee, David. Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings, 2nd Ed. Dangerous Little Books. 2011. p135.
15
For several reviews showing the sophomoric treatment of Christianity in his book,
https://www.scribd.com/doc/154151833/Book-Review-of-Disproving-Christianity-and-Other-Secular-Writings-by-DavidMcAfee, and http://tektonticker.blogspot.com/2012/10/book-snap-david-mcafees-disproving.html, and
http://deeperwaters.ddns.net/?p=8446 and finally http://www.apologetics105.com/disproving-christianity.html.
16
While it should be noted that McAfee, after continual pressure from myself and NJ Bruzzese, has stopped calling himself a
scholar, it did not stop him from claiming on his Wikipedia page that his book was scholarly until a final edit on 3/7/2015
eliminated that claim. Time will tell if that edit remains.

was never employed by an institute of higher learning and was not recognized by any
scholastic body as being an expert on the issues about which he was writing.17
We can see more evidence of this by simply browsing his page and seeing that a large
portion of his posts are quotes from himself above a screen shot of another one of his own
statements with a quote from himself again. Such as the following:

Scrolling through his page, the reader will see hundreds of posts where McAfee touts his own
competence by citing the person that he apparently thinks is the ultimate source for the topic
himself.
In addition to this, one of his favorite kinds of posts is a kind of Dear McAfee where he
will capture a screen shot of questions submitted to him by others who apparently also think
that he is qualified to answer. We can see examples like the following:

17

It should be noted that the DKE does not mean that amateurs cannot write clear and cogent books about topics of their interest,
only that such books should be recognized, especially by their authors, as being representative of their limited level of learning
and academic vetting.

The problem is not only that McAfee does not realize that he is not an actual authority,
but because others seem to treat him as such, he continues to fan the flame. Rather than
recuse himself of the misperception, he reinforces it by going along with it.
3. Unrecognized competence: The individuals self-assessed competence is not recognized by
those who are academically and professional competent.
Because a person suffering from DKE will be less academically trained, and their writing
or discussions will not have gone through the normal academic vetting or shaping process,
they will be more likely to make otherwise easily correctable mistakes. This gives them a
two-edged obstacle to face. Not only will they need to continually overcome objections to
rather avoidable and sophomoric errors, but also because of their lack of training in the field
they will not enjoy the skills that they would have otherwise developed in order to
understand why the mistake was, in fact, mistaken. It is a vicious cycle where the more
mistaken they are, the less likely they are to be able to even have the cognitive skill set to
even recognize when they are mistaken.
Anyone with even a cursory understanding of the nature of biblical and theological
scholarship that has shaped Western Christendom and who has read McAfees book will
easily identify it as a work by someone out of their depth on the issues who has done little to
no research, yet believes themselves to be adept to not only engage with Christianity, but to
actually have accomplished the task of disproving it. For example, here McAfee thinks that
his liberal bent just is the obvious facts about the composition of the Synoptic Gospel texts:
The problem is that anyone familiar with
scholarship on this issue knows that there is quite a
divergent set of views, one of the major ones being
that Matthew, Mark and Luke were either written
by eye witnesses or were the culmination of
redacting together eye witness histories.18
To be honest, it is hard to explain how
McAfees own rhetoric betrays his lack of
familiarity with the topics he addresses to anyone
not familiar with how academic study is
accomplished and applied. There is a certain kind
of inside speak that comes with spending decades
studying a certain topic in academic settings, such
that when one hears someone make superficial and
untrained comments about it, one can tell that the
person is not well versed in the subject. This is not done just by what they say but often how
they phrase it. With much study of any subject there comes an understanding and
engagement with a kind of shared technical language, a lexicon, and a manner of discourse

18

For some examples see: Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2008; Kruger,
Michael J. Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origin and Authority of the New Testament Books. Crossway. 2012; Kruger,
Michael J. The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate. IVP Academic. 2013; Blomberg,
Craig. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. IVP Academic. 2007; Bruce, F.F. The New Testament Documents: Are They
Reliable? Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2003; Evans, Craig and Lee McDonald. How We Got the New Testament: Text,
Transmission Translation (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology). Baker Academic. 2013.

particular to experts in that field that McAfee just simply lacks. In Disproving Christianity
and Other Secular Writings, McAfee states,
As illustrated by the previous chapters, it is impossible to argue that The Holy
Bible (which is presupposed by The Bible itself and the majority of Christian
theologians, including the Roman Catholic [Papal] community, to be infallible) is
without faults once you are well informed in regards to its contents.19
He explicitly include the Roman Catholic Papal community (a strange term to begin with
even on its own) with Christian theologians, as if no one would have included them
without this reference. The statement as a whole is just bizarre. Why not say, Including the
Mainline Protestant Evangelical community, or Including the Eastern Orthodox
Antiochene community, or even Including the Sub-Saharan Charismatic Oneness
Pentecostal community? Anyone reading this with an academic specialty in any field will
surely know what I mean when I say that even the manner that a person addresses an issue is
an indication of their depth of understanding and interaction with the experts on that subject.
By this statement, and many others throughout his published work, McAfee repeatedly shows
that he is outside the pale of anything even remotely resembling expertise.
Yet it goes even further than this, for McAfee is not merely wrong on issues regarding
Christianity but on other religious issues as well. Here we can see several of his comments on
Buddhism:

In these posts, McAfee not only oversteps his own knowledge base, but he acts as if that
knowledge base is vast and extensive; as if he has had numerous religious studies professors,
textbooks, and dictionaries that he has all deeply engaged with on the question of the nature
of Buddhism.20 For the moment I will lay aside my reservations about using the term
religion as if it is even a comprehensive or meaningful concept, and will focus merely on
the issue of whether or not Buddhism is a religion. For example, Michael McGhee, a senior
19
20

McAfee. p109.
A fake conversation between him and an unknown Buddhist does not qualify as such.

fellow of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, argues in his article for the Guardian that
it is much more complex than that.21 He argues, basically that those who want to say that
Buddhism is non-religious miss the point just as much as those who want to say that it is
religious. How very Zen of him. B. Alan Wallace write,
"When we in the West first engage with Buddhism, it is almost inevitable that we
bring out one of our familiar stereotypes and apply it to Buddhism, calling it
simply a 'religion.'... But Buddhism has never been simply a religion as we define
it in the West. From the very beginning it has also had philosophical elements, as
well as empirical and rational elements that may invite the term 'science.'"22
There are also comments by Rupert Mark Lovell Gethin, Professor of Buddhist Studies in the
Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Bristol University who states,
...Buddhism: is it a religion? Obviously it depends on how one defines 'a
religion'. What is certain, however, is that Buddhism does not involve belief in a
creator God who has control over human destiny, nor does it seek to define itself
by reference to a creed; as Edward Conze has pointed out, it took over 2,000 years
and a couple of Western converts to Buddhism to provide it with a creed. On the
other hand, Buddhism views activities that would be generally understood as
religioussuch as devotional practices and ritualsas a legitimate, useful, and
even essential part of the practice and training that leads to the cessation of
suffering."
In fact, the debate over what exactly Buddhism is has been going on for centuries, largely
due to the ambiguity on just what is meant by the terms religion or religious. The
surprising thing about McAfees statements is that this is something most college freshmen
learn in their Philosophy 101 classes or would surely be discussed in any comparative
religions course, which McAfee would likely have taken as part of his undergraduate studies.
That he not only so misunderstands the topic, overestimates his own skill despite this blatant
error, in addition to showing that he does not have the slightest grasp on what scholars in the
field of Religious Studies are saying, is further evidence that DKE is likely in operation here.
4. False peers: The individual believes that the favorable commentary of other unskilled and
non-professional individuals, indicates they themselves are sufficiently qualified.
For those who have watched the recent eruption between McAfee and myself on several
of his Facebook threads where he attempts to mock me and my review of his book rather
than engage with the content, what became readily apparent was not only how unskilled
McAfee is but how even more unskilled and irrational his followers have become by

21

I find that those who are well versed in scholarship on an issue will often be much more willing to express and be comfortable
with ambiguity and complexity and will avoid sharp black and white evaluations or treat the issues as open and shut. Even when
a scholar does have strong conviction of their conclusions, they will usually give a handshake to those who disagree with them.
For more on McGhees comments see: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/oct/07/is-buddhism-a-religion.
22
Goleman, Daniel (2008-11-19). Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (Kindle Locations 13011305). Bantam. Kindle Edition.

subsisting on a daily McAfee diet.23 What McAfee has done is surround himself with nothing
but yes men who will flood his threads with mocks and taunts of anyone who disagrees
with him and adoration and adulation for nearly every single OP that he posts, regardless of
how rational, irrational, biased or bigoted they might be. His self-congratulatory posts have
actually morphed over time into OPs with
quotes celebrating a screen shot of another
one of his own posts. And they love him for
it.
Posts like the one seen to the right, are
common place on McAfees page. If it was
not enough that he posts screen shots of his
own comments and truisms or quotes from
his own book, it seems he has no lack of
meme fodder from fans and other forums
which convert and memorialize his sayings
into memes to be spread around. It seems
that not only does McAfee have quite the
following of so-called skeptics who
question everything except McAfees
revelations,24 but he also has several groups
that seem willing to venerate in memetic
splendor any quote from an internet infidel so long as it is punchy, edgy, and just the right
amount of irreverent. Little concern is paid to whether it is reasonable, rational, or charitable
to the opposing position.
5. Scrutiny avoidance: The individual fails to submit their work for professional scrutiny (such
as in the relevant scholarly literature), for review by those genuinely qualified.
The simple fact is that McAfees first book was self-published. The second edition of that
same book was published by the boutique publisher Dangerous Little Books with little to no
revisions or increase in academic rigor from the first despite having been presented with
numerous academic reviews of his book by that time. Had he wanted to make the book less
jejune, he had resources giving him insights on possible ways to do so. That he made little to
no content changes besides adding more puerile reflections as amendments stapled on to the

23

The irony is that McAfee will often publicly state that he does not hate religion and does not intend to insult believers or
encourage others to do so. Yet even if that is true, he should observe the net effect of his own rhetoric and marketing. We can
easily observe the kind of following that he has gathered to himself and the kinds of comments that populate his threads. They are
more often than not highly invective, mocking, derisive while at the same time axiomatic, assumptive, unevidenced and biased
assertions or nave evaluations of any comment that McAfee decides to post. At what point do we step back and ask, regardless
of his personal motives, if the net effect of his rhetoric has a negative impact on the overall tenor of the debate and the further
expansion of atheistic or antitheistic fundamentalism? At what point does McAfee have to take personal responsibility for the
effects of his rhetoric? I do not mean this as a critique of his character but rather a critique of his methodology. Figs are produced
by fig trees. If his rhetoric and method were as rational, reasonable, courteous and evidential as he believes that they are, then we
should see a tendency in those who follow his work and like his posts and comment on them to exhibit such behaviors. What we
see is the inverse of that however. That fact, I think, should be taken into consideration. Sow the wind and you will reap the
whirlwind.
24
On one thread, one of his followers told me, Until you have proof, nothing you have to say can possibly refute anything David
has to say. Apparently, McAfee has risen to the level on infallible in the eyes of some of his fans.

end, reveals that he thought that the book was good as it was.25 The DKE is at this point a
good explanation for McAfee because, despite his claims to be skilled in the field, if he
actually had an adequate level of expertise then he would have been able to recognize the
unsophisticated nature of the first edition of the book and make the needed edits for the
second edition. However, he did nothing of the sort.
Nothing that McAfee has ever published has been submitted for academic review and yet
he considers himself to be an up-and-coming if not leading voice for the movement devoted
to reason, logic and science; a scholar by his own profession. When posts to these critical
reviews are put up on his Facebook wall they are quickly removed or hidden, and when other
people attempted to update his Wikipedia page to include these reviews, they were promptly
removed to maintain an untarnished profile. When I attempted to update his Wikipedia page
with links to numerous reviews and not just my own, he posted an OP stating, It's sad when
a Christian apologist has to join Wikipedia and edit the article on me in an attempt to insert
himself into my body of work. Rather than admitting that the profile was now much more
accurate and objective or engage with the content of the updates, he opted for insults and
subjective psychologizing where he not only speculated about my private intentions, but
stated his assertion as if it was fact. The links were promptly removed again. We can see the
edits that I made here:

25

We must remember that the book was largely written during his undergraduate studies and thus we cannot say that it is even
the product of an undergraduate level of instruction.

These edits were not only in regard to the reviews about his published books but also in
reviews of his blog posts as well. On one occasion Nicholas Bruzzese and I wrote a rather
academic critique of McAfees endorsement of the known forgery Secret Mark. 26 This too
was not permitted to be posted on his group page, any additions to his Wikipedia page were
promptly removed and, per usual, his followers engaged in a campaign of insult and mockery
rather than engage with any of the content or actually scrutinize whether McAfee could
possibly have made a mistake and call him on it.
His continual and concerted efforts to avoid scrutiny are obvious to anyone who is not an
ardent and devoted fan of his work. In fact, his disreputable tactics have become so pervasive
that many of us who engage with him on a regular basis have begun the habit of capturing
screen shots of our posts to prove that we have in fact posted them and that he has removed
them.27 The screen shot below is an example of one taken to prove that Elijiah Thompson
had posted to McAfee exhorting him to make people aware that my review of his work was
free in numerous places despite McAfees previous claim to the contrary in a post where he
mocked me for charging more for the review than he did for the book. Once McAfee was
shown the facts and evidence that this was not the case, he did nothing to apologize or correct
his error and has yet to remove the post.28

26

For that review see: https://www.scribd.com/doc/205950801/Review-of-McAfee-s-The-Forgotten-Gospels-of-the-Bible-DidJesus-Condone-Homosexuality-by-NJ-Bruzzese-and-Tyler-Vela

27
I wish that I could say we were just taking unnecessary precautions but sadly, these screen shots have had to be used numerous
times to show what comments were being hidden or blocked.
28
Verification as of 3:45pm PST on 3/16/2015.

6. Pioneer complex: The individual self-identifies as a pioneer uncovering previously unknown

or unrecognized facts; a Copernicus or Galileo.
This, too, is not hard to see apparent on so many of McAfees posts. A kind of perceived
novelty of it all seems to surround each new post where we are intended to bask in the
radiance of his quick and innovative wit. His Wikipedia pages boasts,
McAfee tried to create new arguments against the validity of the Christian
religion... McAfee attempts to uncover previously unknown contradictions in
modern Christian teachings and why he believes that these reveal problems with
the founding pillars of Christianity itself.
What is important to note here is that this toned down statement is what was left after my
edits to the Wikipedia page. The statements were originally stated by McAfee as, McAfee
establishes new arguments against the validity of the Christian religion... McAfee uncovers
previously unknown contradictions in modern Christian teachings and why he believes that
these reveal problems with the founding pillars of Christianity itself. McAfee has a
grandiose view of his own abilities such that he believes that he has exposed problems with
Christianity and the Bible that no one has noticed for nearly 3000 years despite some of the
greatest minds the world over researching, thinking, and writing about it. UCSB must have
one hell of a Religious Studies undergraduate program to equip him for such an incredible
feat of scholarship that previous generations were incapable of accomplishing.
Beyond the absurdity of McAfees above claims, for anyone who has read Disproving
Christianity and Other Secular Writings and is even remotely familiar with the scholarship on
the issues addressed in his book, it is easy to see that McAfee understands himself as an
innovator but is actually an imitator. He may believe that he is an avant-garde critical thinker
who is accomplished at unearthing previously unknown facts that the rest of us were too
biased or blinded by tradition to uncover, but he really is beyond his depth, and due to his
own bias will likely never awaken from his reductionistic dogmatic slumber.
7. Conspiracy claims: The individual explains opposition by qualified professionals as a
coordinated attempt to suppress truth in order to defend the existing scholarly consensus.
McAfee publicly eschews conspiracy theories regarding 9/11, ancient aliens and
chemical trails, and we are thankful for that. However, the conspiracy claims indicator that
the DKE researchers address is not, broadly speaking, a persons propensity for conspiracy
theories generally. Rather, what they address are the kinds of conspiracies one concocts in
order to justify their rejection by the established scholarly community.
In this case, we can simply look at how McAfee reacted when he was denied admission
into the Religious Studies graduate program at his own alma mater, UCSB. There are
multiple reasons why a person would not be accepted into a graduate degree program at their
own university. It could be due to their lack of academic capabilities or due to their lack of
ability to objectively study the subject matter. It could also be something as utterly innocuous
as not being the right fit for the program whereby fit the admissions board does not mean
personally, but rather that ones proposed area of study does not align with the areas of
research in which the current faculty is expert in. Here, I am not going to claim to divine why

McAfee was rejected, though I do think that if his book and blog are representative of the
quality and character of his work during his time in the classrooms and in engagement with
students and faculty, it is not that hard to guess what those reasons could have been.
What we discover is that McAfee launched into an all-out PR smear campaign of UCSB
and his advising professor who ultimately denied his application for what he perceived to be
religious discrimination. He made the blog-o-sphere rounds, even getting a write-up on
Patheos.com.29 McAfee claimed that it was specifically because of his atheism that he was
denied entrance into the program, a claim he will later augment to suit his image as atheistic
martyr to sell books. Considering, however, that there are numerous atheists in the very
program to which he was denied and were enrolled during the time that McAfee applied, that
kind of juvenile explanation seems highly implausible, not only to any rational person, but
especially to any person familiar with graduate acceptance standards.
He even goes so far as to cast Ann Taves, the
chair of the Religious Studies department at the
time, of being the truly biased party in the whole
affair. Why does he claim that? He writes, Little
did I know at the time, her scholarly background
primarily focuses in theology- and not in
Religious Studies.30 For him, no unbiased
scholar studies what he considers the absurd topic
of theology. This again shows his unskilled level
of engagement with academia in this field. Not
only are a large portion of the worlds leading
scholars of religion theologians or at the very
least, carry degrees in theology specifically, but
that view - that to study theology just is to study
in a pointless discipline in a biased manner - is so
naive that it would be humorous if it werent so
Ann Taves, Religious Studies UCSB
erroneous. Not to mention that someone like
Taves, who has served with distinction as the
president of the American Academy of Religion, would be considered by all accounts a
liberal and critical scholar if there ever was one. If a student has someone like Taves telling
them that they are too liberal and too activistic for the program, then that student may want to
take a long look in the mirror. It would be on par with Jerry Falwell telling them that they are
too conservative.
In fact, after his PR campaign and threatened law suit against UCSB settled down,
McAfee altered his story just enough to cast him in the light of an atheistic activist martyr.
This gives us an even brighter glimmer of the possible reason for why he was in fact denied.
On his own Amazon biography (complete with a picture of him with a sticker over his face,
conjuring images of martyrs being persecuted, gagged and silenced), McAfee writes, After
experiencing discrimination within the American public education system as a result of his
secular activism... We can see that even he admits that it was not because he was an atheist
29

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/04/30/atheist-rejected-from-grad-school-because-of-his-activism/. What is
interesting on this article is that many of the comments noted that it had nothing to do with his atheism, as UCSBs graduate
program has quite a few atheists researching there.
30
https://davidgmcafee.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/an-atheist-activist-with-an-axe-to-grind/#more-457

per se that he was denied, as he first claimed. Rather, it was because of his activism that he
was not going to be a good fit for the program (or so he now claims). If his activism bled into
his classes and his coursework and left him unable to objectively evaluate material, to turn in
shallow or under researched work that did not engage opposing scholars, or to be a
disturbance in his classes, then it is not only perfectly reasonable that he should have been
rejected, but it should be expected that he would have been. This is again where DKE seems
a fitting condition to explain the data. In this instance, he lacks the skills needed to evaluate
his work to understand that it is sub-par and unmeritorious to earn an approval for admission
by the experts in the field, while at the same time lacking the skill to understand that it is he
who is mistaken and not them.
This led to one more update to his Wikipedia page that continued to be rejected by either
him or his followers. In this we can see that he wants to assert that it was in fact his atheism
that got him rejected from UCSBs graduate program. My edits were made to reflect the facts
more objectively, yet they were repeatedly deleted31 and then mocked and ridiculed by him
and his followers on his Facebook page. Here are the edits that were made:

Here we can see that McAfee wanted to claim as gospel truth that his rejection was a
direct result of his atheism. When the edit was made that there was some dispute over that
31

Who edits Wikipedia pages is largely hard to discern in many cases so I do not want to pin it conclusively on McAfee himself.
However, it is hard to doubt that it is not either him, someone close to him, or, at the very least, a fan. Wikipedia general editors
do not tend to actively promote biased reviews of persons or their works. It also seems hardly coincidental for the edits to be
deleted just minutes before McAfee ridiculing my edits on his Facebook page.

very issue, the edits were repeatedly undone and have only subsisted after much light was
shed on the editing practices employed by those who monitor his page.
8. Allocentric claims of bias: The individual explains the difference between their views and
those of qualified professionals, as the result of inherent bias on the part of the professionals;
accusations of bias are directed at anyone other than themselves, and they claim objectivity.
We saw this above in the case of Dr. Taves where McAfee concocted a bias on a part of
Taves, the actual expert, rather than himself to explain why she is subpar as an unbiased
scholar. If we combine two of McAfees quotes that we have already addressed above, we
can see this more clearly. McAfee writes,
As an American scholar of Religious Studiesas opposed to TheologyI am accustomed
to studying religions and their various effects on society (positive and negative) from an
objective point of view.
And elsewhere,
Little did I know at the time, her scholarly background primarily focuses in theology- and
not in Religious Studies.
For McAfee, what made it possible to self identify as a scholar, at least in part, was that
he did not study Theology but rather that he got a degree in Religious Studies. For him, those,
like Taves, who have degrees in Theology, are not real scholars because they are too biased
and are not trained to study religions from an objective point of view.32 Here, we can think
of the numerous occasions where McAfee and others will say that Christian scholars cannot
be trusted on issues regarding textual criticism, the Bible, theology, etc., precisely because
they are Christian. That is, they are too biased to be considered real scholars. Here we can
see that McAfee thinks that anyone who studies Theology, is going to be overtly biased on
issues of religious studies. This allows McAfee to reject any criticism that comes from
Christians, apologists, theologians or any scholar that disagrees with him who has any
theological training because they are engaged in theology, which for him, is synonymous
with biased nonsense. As one of his followers quipped, they have a B.A. in B.S. This means
that in his own mind, McAfee is the objective and unbiased one, and the professionals who
disagree with him are the biased theologizers who are incapable of objectivity.
Conclusion
What we have seen throughout this survey is that McAfee is a prime example of a person
who is a likely candidate for a severe case of DKE. While I am not a psychologist and do not
claim that this is an actual diagnosis, it is clear that McAfee not only possesses (and publicly
professes) every identifier, but also that he does so to a level which is staggering and often
32

Ironically the more one studies a subject the more they learn that we can never be completely objective and must learn to use
tools to help them overcome or mitigate the effects of our biases upon our research. This means that with greater education, a
person will be in a position to more readily admit their own bias and acknowledge the ways that it may impact their own thinking
on the subject in order to mitigate against it. There is no such thing as an unbiased scholar. His view of a kind of academic
utopianism is itself evidence that he is a likely candidate for the confirmation of DKE.

baffling to those who witness it. I can only hope that through the continual efforts of those
who patiently engage with him and his followers that he, or possibly some of them, might be
brought to a higher level of epistemological self-awareness that they are unskilled in the
areas which they are the most brazen and brash in. Then, in response, they might begin the
proper steps to climb out Platos cave, one book at a time.