A few years ago, I was watching a well-known trainer teach a clinic. I had hoped to be incognito, but the clinician's partner recognized me somehow and approached to speak to me. During the conversation, they said something like, “I think it is important we all (meaning horse professionals) support each other and try not to be critical.” I just nodded my head because it seemed the right thing to do at that moment. But I disagree.
I worked for a long time as a scientist. Science is never stationary. It is always moving forward. It is always evolving. The thing about science that makes this possible is that as scientists we are always examining and re-examining our work and our work is always being examined and tested by other scientists. Our work is constantly open to scrutiny. There is no political correctness designed to protect a person’s feelings. There is no sense that a person’s work should not be pulled apart and rigorously tested in case somebody gets upset. Part of the contract a scientist makes with the world of science is to accept that other scientists are going to work hard to prove you wrong and then tell the world about it. It happens at grant interviews, it happens at conferences, it happens at laboratory meetings and it happens when you submit a manuscript for publication. It is an important part of the job because without that constant and harsh review process science would grind to a halt – knowledge would grind to a halt. Scientists see this as normal and okay, and even necessary. But many non-scientists, “horse world” people see this as unprofessional, rude, offensive, inappropriate, and even divisive.
I see a big part of my job is to strive to be a better horse person and teacher and to better the knowledge and understanding of people who want to learn from me. If that means I need to explain to my students what I see is wrong with some practices and what changes I would make, then that’s where my priorities lay. I don’t see my job as supporting and protecting the teachings of those I believe are heading in the wrong direction. My job, as I see it, is to be an advocate for the horse, not an advocate for the livelihood of horse professionals whose work I don’t believe in.
However, I want to be clear that a criticism of a principle or method is not a criticism of a person who uses it. Nor is it a suggestion that they are not talented horse people. Most professionals are talented horse people and it would be extremely hard to find any that have no positive merit to their work. However, even the best of the best are not as good as they could be. Most will admit to that.
This brings me to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Dave Dunning and Justin Kruger are American social psychologists and researchers who spent many years establishing a principle that says, “The more incompetent a person is the less incompetent they think they are.” It means that the less we know the less we know we know. But conversely, the more we know the more likely we are to realize how much we don’t know.
One side effect of this is that we are always self-assessing inaccurately. We hide our imperfections from ourselves, so we need experts outside of our sphere to help keep our self-evaluation accurate. Our imperfections prevent us from seeing our imperfections. No matter how smart you are everybody will fall victim to the Dunning Kruger effect because we are all going to have areas of ignorance and incompetents that are outside our ability to see.
Therefore, the people best suited to evaluate and analyze the ideas of expert horse people are other expert horse people. Just like in the science world, other expert scientists evaluate and test the work of other scientists, so too do we need expert horse people to test and evaluate other horse people’s ideas.
It should be encouraged and applauded, not criticized and shrouded with howls of “unprofessionalism”. Professionals like me should welcome scrutiny and public discourse of our ideas and methods. Nobody should hide behind political correctness. To do so runs the risk that horsemanship will stagnate and not evolve beyond what we know now - cheating both horses and people from having the relationship one day (or decade or lifetime) we all hope but never dream could be possible.
I’ll keep taking the hits of scorn and ridicule because Isaac Asimov (science fiction writer and biochemist, 1920 - 1992) once said that great discoveries were not accompanied by words like “Eureka”, but by words like “Hmm, that’s interesting.” That’s why I want all of us to keep evaluating and critically analyzing what we believe we know and what others tell us they believe they know. I want every horse person to experience that moment when their horse does something unexpected and they think to themselves, “Hmm, that’s interesting”.
David Dunning (L) and Justin Kruger (R) published their seminal work in 199. Kruger, J; Dunning, D (December 1999). "Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77 (6): 1121–34.