"The less someone knows about a subject, the more they think they know." I think that's an exaggeration and understood by most people to be one.
What is, however, absolutely clear from the original study is that incompetent people have a highly inflated assessment on their own abilities: in all four experiments (!), the people with actual 10% abilities rated themselves at 50-70%. This is perfectly in line with eg. Urban Dictionary's definition[1]:
"A phenomenon where people with little knowledge or skill think they know more or have more skill than they do."
What is, however, absolutely clear from the original study is that incompetent people have a highly inflated assessment on their own abilities: in all four experiments (!), the people with actual 10% abilities rated themselves at 50-70%. This is perfectly in line with eg. Urban Dictionary's definition[1]:
"A phenomenon where people with little knowledge or skill think they know more or have more skill than they do."
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dunning-Kruge...
[1] Chosen intentionally because this is a "popular" source, not an academic one.