This story is popular for the same reason as Dunning–Kruger. People cite D-K because everyone acts as certain as them and it's frustrating. If we're all equally certain, what makes me different from you? D-K gives the answer you want to hear--the other people are mistakenly confident in their abilities, unlike you.<p>If you look at the numbers and graphs for D-K, the actual conclusion is that everyone thinks they're in about the 70th percentile (with some minor variation) regardless of their ability, a non-conclusion. That is, however, not the interpretation we want to be true, so we continue to perpetuate the more specious analysis that skilled people know their ability level and unskilled do not, when really it is just a side effect of everyone rating themselves in the 70th percentile and some people inevitably landing at that same skill level.<p>Here's an essay that puts the same reversal in perspective for the Bell story: <a href="http://essays.dayah.com/face-the-music" rel="nofollow">http://essays.dayah.com/face-the-music</a>. It argues we love to promote and repeat this story because it proves that _we_ could be unacknowledged geniuses. In our retelling of the Bell story, we are not referencing the masses that walk by rather than listen, we're pointing out that others walk by us.