so the main form of evidence for this originated by, in the lab of a great psychologist named frank kyle at yale, and what he did was ask people to think about simple, everyday objects like zippers, ball-point pens, toilets. and he asked people how well they understood these things, and people felt they had a sense of understanding, right? on a seven-point scale, they would say four or five. and then he'd say, okay, how do they work? what people discovered, for the most part, they had nothing to say. so when he again asked them how well they understand them, the ratings were lower. the act of trying to explain punctured their illusion of understanding such that they lost some of their hubris. and what i've done with some colleagues, todd rogers at harvard and craig fox at ucla and my co-author, phil fernback, is to take this paradime and run anytime the context of political policy. so we take political policies like should there be unilateral sanctions on iran, cap and trade policy toes or carbon emissions, and we ask people how well they understand them, and then we say how well does it