The popular understanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect (including that one "graph" everyone shares) is wrong. The Dunning-Kruger effect is simply that people taking tests with a lower knowledge base overestimate their scores to a greater degree than people taking tests with a higher knowledge base (real score - self estimated score). It does not show that people that are less experienced/learned have higher esteem in their abilities than those with more experience, Merely that overestimation of one's own competence reduces with increased competence.