Chauffeur knowledge

What it is

Mistaking the ability to talk fluently about a subject for real understanding. The name comes from Munger's tale of Max Planck's chauffeur, who memorized the lecture and then fielded questions he did not understand.

Related

• Curse of knowledge bias
  Opposite relationships to knowledge: the curse comes from knowing too much to explain it, chauffeur knowledge from fluency without understanding.
• Dunning-Kruger effect bias
  Fluency can be confused with competence, by the speaker and the audience.
• Twaddle tendency bias
  Fluent talk without substance feeds both: chatter fills the space where understanding should be.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#16: Chauffeur knowledge

References

• Wikipedia: Chauffeur knowledge en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

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