Personally, I think this is a highly pertinent cognitive bias, so pervasive as to affect nearly every aspect of modern life. I think that our most able thinkers keep quiet for fear of being wrong, whilst the stupidest and least informed in our society shout from the rooftops in blissful ignorance. I think that between the natural effect of "the more you know, the more you realise you don't know" and the pervasive anti-intellectualism in our society, we are becoming dominated by the loud and inept.
In my work as a gambler, I rejoice in this bias, as it is what pays my bills - bad gamblers can't even conceive the idea that there might be skill involved. Unfortunately, I think it is fucking up society - while professional scientists are careful to speak precisely, avoid hyperbole and only make statements that are backed by strong evidence, their opponents feel free to rant and rave, to extrapolate one anecdote into compelling evidence, even to deny the possibility of objectivity.
I think that's a lot less generalizable than you suppose. For details, see
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...
Both behavioral economics and cognitive psychology show that most people overestimate their abilities most of the time.
Umm, no. They're almost always careful when speaking to cohorts about their field, but if either of those change, all bets are off.
And, they're often willing to let proxies rant, and often encourage it, to go beyond what they'll say, to maintain their plausible deniability.
Scientists are people too.