Can you know that which is unknowable?
In a study , 1017 respondents were asked their opinion about the Monetary Control Bill (MCB). About 10% of the respondents tended to support the bill and about 5% of the respondents tended to oppose the bill. If they claim to support or oppose the bill, you would assume that they also know what the bill is about. However, they can't know what the bill is about since the bill is fictitious. The authors made it up just for the experiment. Essentially, respondents claimed to know about something that was fictitious. The tendency to "overclaim", or to claim to know more than you do, has been found in several studies. For example, people claim to know about fictitious topics in science and in finance. People tend to overclaim if they think that they are aware of the topic. For example, one study finds that respondents are more likely to claim to be familiar with non-existent consumer brands, for which there was broad knowledge to refer to. He finds that peopl...