Best Of The Public

The "best of the public" is a successful approach to education, scholarship, art, sports, science, and biblical translation that was the topic of discussion when Andy Schlafly appeared on the Colbert Report on December 8, 2009.^[1] Mr. Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia, originally coined the expression during an interview published a week earlier, on December 3, 2009:^[2]

Another way of expressing this concept is that "extraordinary achievements are attained by ordinary people." Jesus's enigmatic, repeated reference to himself as the "Son of Man" illustrates how great achievement comes from the ostensibly ordinary rather than esteemed experts. Most prophets were also ordinary men.^[3] "Experts," on the other hand, frequently mislead the public and promote faulty ideas,^[4][5] as "expert" Anthony Fauci with his liberal denial that Covid-19 was man-made.

Examples[edit]

Bob Dylan's famous lyric about not needing experts expresses disdain for over-reliance on experts: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."^[6]

Intellectual and other examples using the "best of the public" include:

Intellectual examples[edit]

• Walt Whitman, perhaps the finest American poet ever, dropped out of public school at age 11, and glorified the common man in his poetry.
• Mark Twain left school at age 12 and went on to become one of the greatest American writers.^[7]
• Bobby Fischer, born to a nearly homeless mother, won the chess Game of the Century at age 13, became U.S. Chess Champion at age 14, and spectacularly won the world title for the U.S. in 1972.
• the Bible

• the earliest gospel -- the Gospel of Mark -- was likely written by a non-Apostle who witnessed the events as a young boy, and includes Jesus's advice to welcome good by the public
• the Parable of the Good Samaritan describes how the best of the public -- even someone ostracized -- is better than a group of experts; the destitute widow gave more than anyone else.^[8]
• Encouragement of Jesus by ordinary, unexpected people who played an essential role
• Psalms and Proverbs are filled with gems and yet have unknown authorship
• the Stranger on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) -- ostensibly a random, uniformed member of the public -- knew more
• the Epistle to the Hebrews has unknown authorship, despite having the highest intellectual level; it was possibly written by Jesus

• Shakespeare was an unknown commoner in aristocratic England, and yet Shakespeare became the greatest playwright of all time; some refuse even now to accept that an ordinary, relatively uneducated person could have surpassed the elite by so much.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton, was rejected by literary critics of his day, and was banished by his girlfriend's family for being too poor, but he is now credited with having written the greatest American novel, The Great Gatsby.^[9]
• Kurt Gödel single-handedly changed mathematics by proving its incompleteness, contrary to what all leading mathematicians thought, and yet Godel never received a tenured professorship or high award.
• the Apostles
• Justice Robert Jackson, the finest Supreme Court jurist of the 20th century, did not attend college and never graduated from law school.
• pamphleting, as in Common Sense
• the solution to the Poincaré conjecture (see below); also, the proposed solution to the "abc conjecture," merely posted on a website [6]
• Georg Cantor, founder of the basis for modern math (set theory), taught at an obscure university and never lectured on his brilliant breakthrough in mathematics for which he is revered today
• Ronald Coase, an originally obscure economist, developed the now-accepted Coase theorem despite nearly unanimous rejection and opposition by experts; ultimately Coase was recognized by the award of an unshared Nobel Prize
• Evariste Galois, an unknown teenager, developed group theory and it took the mathematical experts a century to appreciate it
• Alexander Hamilton, the most intellectually productive of the Founding Fathers, was abandoned by his father, orphaned by the premature death of his mother, and then orphaned again by the suicide of his adopted father; he was stigmatized due to his social background and excluded from the local British school for it.
• the principle of trial by a jury of one's peers
• letters to the editor
• the design of Vietnam War Memorial (competition won by a college student, featuring ordinary soldiers)
• the design of the immensely successful St. Louis Arch (the result of a competition won by an obscure architect,^[10] awarding a design featuring openness)
• an obscure, unsuccessful author, Herman Melville, wrote the greatest novel in English literature, Moby-Dick
• The Constitution of the United States of America. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, chose to eschew the idea of "expert" hereditary nobility, but were also wary of the mob rule that could result with pure democracy; thus, they chose a democratic republic instead.
• The Electoral College was intended to be composed of the best of the public, who would judge who was best qualified to be president.
• Conservapedia posted errors and flaws in a pro-evolution article by Professor Richard Lenski (published after a mere 14-day peer review), but PNAS refused to correct the errors and Lenski responded with petulant rants insisting his critic lacked "expertise".
• design of the distinctive Coca-Cola glass bottle, which resulted from a public contest in 1915.
• Internet blogs. Anyone can start a blog, and readers read the best blog posts. Such blogs have been responsible for breaking crucial news stories well before the "experts" of the traditional media—for example, the Monica Lewinsky story and Rathergate
• Layman Allen devised games like "WFF 'n proof" and Equations which reduced absenteeism, increased math achievement and achieved voluntary integration in the segregated Chicago school system. [7]
• Homeschooled students tended to dominate the annual Math Counts competition to such an extent that the competition changed the rules to ban teams of homeschoolers from participating.^[11]
• In 1939, George Dantzig, a graduate student at Stanford University solved two problems in statistics that were previously considered unsolvable after mistaking them for a homework assignment. Until Dantzig's professor told him what he had done, he was unaware that there was anything special about the problems.^[12]
• All wikis, such as Conservapedia, are an example of the 'Best of the Public' because their accuracy depends upon the premise that the public can outdo encyclopedias written by experts.

Political and legal examples[edit]

• Phyllis Schlafly was born into a poor Depression-era family, and yet as a small-town housewife with six children defeated the presidents of both parties, Ted Kennedy, the entire media, the Establishment, and all the experts by stopping ERA.
• Spending only $153, a furniture company truck driver defeated the most powerful entrenched Dem legislator in New Jersey in 2021.^[13]
• William Penn's approach to colonial Pennsylvania, which even advertised to attract hard-working settlers of all ethnicity and religious beliefs; as a result Philadelphia quickly became the most prosperous and highly populated city in colonial America.
• Ronald Reagan was a "C" student and a "B" actor who was second-rate at virtually everything he did outside of politics, and yet won landslides to become president and embodied the best of the public in his speeches and political philosophy. He was underestimated by all of his political opponents. His famous "tear down this wall!" speech was mocked and yet achieved the seemingly impossible, peacefully.
• the recall of the governor, the attorney general, and another top official in North Dakota in 1921—who were corrupt politicians devoted to state ownership of industry—was organized and achieved by someone who never held public office^[14]
• the "common law" developed over centuries based on many day-to-day judicial decisions, relying on logic, custom and precedent, and such law was considered better than a statute drafted by one or a few experts
• the U.S. Constitution, in its prohibition on nobility and religious tests for office, its frequent elections of House members, and its term limitation on the president.
• the Australian 2020 summit employed the best of the public by bringing together 1,000 people from all over Australia to discuss and make plans for the country's future.^[15]

Moral examples[edit]

• Mary, the mother of Jesus
• Stephen, the first martyr
• Prophets in the Old Testament
• Lenny Skutnik, the Mississippi native who dove into the icy Potomac River to rescue passengers from Air Florida Flight 90 on Jan. 13, 1982.^[16] Tragically, a passenger aboard the plane (Arland D. Williams Jr.), after assisting in the rescue of four passengers, succumbed to the cold and perished; the bridge which the plane struck was renamed in his memory.
• the faith of the woman from Canaan, Matthew 15:21-28
• individuals who display stigmata, as Padre Pio did

Art and music examples[edit]

• A Flock of Seagulls produced "(I Ran) So Far Away" in 1982.
• An untitled painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a young formerly homeless man, broke all records for American works with its sale price of $110M at an auction, stunning art experts. Basquiat's politically inspired art denounced institutions and colonialism.
• Adele, who has broken numerous records in music sales, was raised in an underprivileged home by a single mother and Adele first became known based on a posting of her work on MySpace.com.
• Orson Welles, whose mother died when he turned 9 years old, his alcoholic father died when he was 15, and he declined a scholarship to Harvard University to pursue work; he wrote, directed, produced and acted in what most critics say is the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane.
• Battle Hymn of the Republic, the only significant song by Julia Ward Howe, written in the dark during a pre-dawn inspiration.
• I Can See Clearly Now (1972), a massive one-hit wonder by Johnny Nash.
• You Light Up My Life, the only hit by Debby Boone, was a tribute to God that topped the charts for many weeks.
• Sunshine (1971), which was not only a one-hit-wonder by Jonathan Edwards, but it was included in his album only because a preferred song had been accidentally erased.^[17]
• Ice Ice Baby was the "B-side" filler panned by "experts" which became a massive hit because a disc jockey played it by chance; reportedly written by Vanilla Ice when he was 16.^[18]
• American Idol, which lasted from 2002 to 2016 and was restarted in 2018.
• The Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States.
• 96 Tears by Question Mark and the Mysterians reached Number One on the charts, and overshadowed subsequent successes by the band.
• Cher Lloyd's song Want U Back.
• In the Year 2525, by Zager and Evans, reached number one in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The group had no other Top 40 songs in either country, making them the only group to have this kind of "one-hit wonder" in both countries.
• Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum.
• Michael Sembello and Maniac.
• Tommy Tutone produced 867-5309 (Jenny).
• Soft Cell's song Tainted Love.
• Quarterflash Hearden my Heart.
• Casablanca (film, 1942) - a low-budget film which gained a massive audience only years later.
• It Never Rains in Southern California by Albert Hammond (1972)
• Runaway by Del Shannon (1961) - #1 on all the major English-speaking national charts, none of his other songs close
• The Final Countdown by the band Europe was a one-hit wonder.
• Take On Me (1985) by the Norwegian group a-ha was a one-hit wonder that became the 5th song to reach 1 billion views on YouTube.

(add more one-hit wonders)^[19]

Military examples[edit]

• Eddie Rickenbacker, who had to drop out of school at age 12 in order to support his mother after his father died, became the "American Ace of Aces" with 26 victories in World War I (despite being relatively old), survived on a life raft for 24 days after his plane went down in World War II (despite being over 50 years old), and later spoke out for conservative views; Rickenbacker, a phenomenal race-car driver when WWI broke out, was rejected for flying but then fixed Billy Mitchell's car and persuaded him to give Eddie a chance at aviation.^[20]
• "Expert" General Robert E. Lee devised the military strategy for the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg, but was crushed by a military strategy developed by the unheralded Union General George Meade, who then failed to heed the advice of his underlings to pursue the enemy for a total victory.^[21]

Athletics[edit]

Anyone can enter, and winning is based solely on skill. Examples include the following:

Competitions[edit]

• The Olympic Games,^[22] known for setting the most world records. When Francois Duvalier was the dictator of Haiti, he decided to abandon common sense and instead use nepotism to select who would compete in the Olympics. High-ranking military officials were sent to represent Haiti regardless of athletic ability, and typically finished last. The International Olympic Committee has since taken steps to ensure all athletes are reasonably qualified, although they do make exceptions in the Summer Olympics for countries with no reasonably qualified athletes in any sport (also, the host country is allowed to enter its athletes into any event). Today, all countries send their best athletes, rather than use the methods Duvalier used.
• The Tour de France.^[23]

Achievements[edit]

• Villanova University won two NCAA men's basketball titles in three years (2016 and 2018) despite having a relatively obscure athletic program.
• Muhammad Ali was not expected to win the heavyweight boxing championship, and even after he won some experts doubted his ability, yet he was arguably the greatest ever.
• Arthur Ashe, son of a policeman, at the relatively old age of 31 crushed the nearly invincible 22-year-old Jimmy Connors in 1975 to become the only African American men's Wimbledon singles champion;^[24] Ashe won this upset with an ingenious strategy of using offspeed volleys unfamiliar to the hard-hitting Connors.
• Dick Fosbury invented the Fosbury Flop despite criticism by all the experts. He won the 1968 Gold Medal with it, and now nearly everyone imitates his style.
• Bob Beamon, an obscure 22-year-old long jumper who barely qualified for the 1968 Olympic finals after fouling out on most attempts, then broke the world record by nearly two feet. In the preceding 30 years, the world record for the long jump had increased by only about 8 inches.^[25]
• Terrell Davis, only a sixth-round NFL draft pick, carried the Denver Broncos to two Super Bowl championships and was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2017.^[26]
• Marion Bartoli, a relatively obscure tennis player with a low seed at Wimbledon, won the women's single title in 2013 without losing a single set the entire tournament, a feat achieved by only five other players in modern history.
• 15-year-old Cori Gauff became the youngest to qualify for Wimbledon through the public qualifying rounds, and then defeated 5-time champion Venus Williams in straight sets, in 2019.
• Simona Halep had never won Wimbledon, but played near-perfect tennis to crush in only 56 minutes the overpowering, 7-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams, in 2019.
• An unsuccessful Olympian, the medical student Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute barrier for the mile, which some experts considered impossible; now the record is 3:43.
• Don Larsen, then a little-known pitcher, threw the only perfect game in World Series history (Game 5, 1956).
• David, a boy of slight build, defeated the most feared warrior of all time, the mammoth Goliath.
• Kurt Warner, one of the greatest football quarterbacks by multiple yardsticks,^[27] was not drafted by any team out of college, was originally cut by the Green Bay Packers, was denied a tryout by the Chicago Bears, and was ultimately given a chance only due to another player's injury.
• Tim Tebow, a devout Christian dismissed by the media, led the Denver Broncos to the playoffs his first season as a starter, and was inexplicably traded to the New York Jets, who preferred to play "expert" quarterback Mark Sanchez, costing them the season and finishing a pathetic 6–10. Tebow was again rejected by the New England Patriots in favor of "expert" quarterback Tom Brady. The team performed poorly in the first quarter of the 2013 season, with Brady playing at a mediocre level of play.
• The Dallas Mavericks, having few stars, swept the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers and then crushed the star-studded Miami Heat to win the 2011 NBA title.
• Similarly, the Toronto Raptors stunned the overwhelmingly-favored Golden State Warriors to win the 2019 NBA championship despite not having any lottery picks on their roster.
• Giannis Antetokounmpo, the "Greek Freak" born to Nigerian parents, was drafted by the NBA only 15th, far below the lottery choices, and was unremarkable but gradually improved each season in the NBA until he won its coveted MVP award in 2019. His motto is a quote from the Bible: "walk by faith, not by sight."^[28]
• Jeremy Lin, denied college basketball scholarships, left undrafted by the NBA and cut by a weak NBA team, joined the 8-15 Knicks and then took them on a seven-game winning streak, including wiping the floor with liberal-promoted Kobe Bryant of the favored Lakers
• a very longshot underdog colt, ridden by a Kentucky Derby rookie, won the fabled race in an enormous upset in 2012.
• Atletico Madrid, a Spanish soccer team whose roster had far fewer stars and cost much less than the expensively-assembled Real Madrid, which contained the two most expensive players in the world, and the star-laden and liberal-promoted FC Barcelona, won the 2013-14 La Liga championship over both clubs. Furthermore, their star striker, Diego Costa, had only scored 52 league goals over seven prior career years and had bounced around seven different teams before the 2013–14 season, but in that season alone, he scored 27 league goals, easily surpassing his previous career-best and leading Atletico to the title.
• Jim Plunkett, a Mexican American raised by blind parents who had met at a school for the blind, won two stunning Super Bowl victories in addition to the Heisman Trophy, despite how his college coach had tried to talk him out of being a quarterback.^[29]
• Albert Pujols was a community college baseball player with only one year of experience at that level, was panned by a scouting report and as a result, was not drafted until the 402nd selection in 1999, and yet after only one season in the minors was on the St. Louis Cardinals major league roster the following year. Pujols became one of the greatest hitters of the 21st century and led the Cardinals to two World Series championships. (It is commonly, though wrongly, reported that Pujols' chance came only because of an injury to Bobby Bonilla; Tony La Russa (the Cardinals' manager) stated that this was not the case; he had impressed the staff and several players and was going to be promoted before the injury.^[30])
• Sloane Stephens, an African American ranked No. 934 in the world in women's tennis the month before, easily won the U.S. Open in 2017, while no player in the finals of the 2015 U.S. Open in women's tennis was ranked in the top 20.
• Stephen Curry, one of the smallest players in the NBA, was drafted only 7th in his year and yet has become perhaps the finest basketball shooter ever.
• In an even more extreme example of the above, Sarunas Marciulionis, drafted 127th in the 1987 NBA draft, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014, and during his career, pioneered the use of the Euro step, which was almost unknown in his day, but is now a very common basketball move.
• In baseball, most of the stars were not considered to be strong prospects for success, as only two number-one draft picks ever made it to the Hall of Fame: Ken Griffey, Jr., and Chipper Jones.^[31] On the opposite extreme is Mike Piazza, a 62nd round selection (and drafted solely because his father was a good friend of Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda) who went on to a successful career, finally being selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016.
• the last pick of the 2022 NFL draft, dubbed "Mr. Irrelevant," was Brock Purdy who stepped in as QB for the San Francisco 49ers and won 7 straight games to place them into the NFC Championship game in Jan. 2023.

(add more)

Science, engineering, architecture, and technology[edit]

• the Loretto spiral staircase was designed and constructed by unknown carpenter without nails, electricity, or a supporting beam, and defies ordinary explanation to this day
• the greatest river engineer ever, James B. Eads, lacked any formal education and his revolutionary successes (such as the Eads Bridge) were opposed by leading experts^[32]
• perhaps the greatest health program of the 20th century, using a new term he coined for his program ("aerobics"), was developed by military physician Kenneth Cooper outside of a major medical research facility
• "Moldy" Mary Hunt, a low-level lab worker, used a rotten cantaloupe to facilitate the first mass production of penicillin.^[33]
• the free software movement and its ongoing development of the Linux operating system
• the development of a heavier-than-air, fixed-wing aircraft by the Wright Brothers, despite opposition and mockery by aviation "experts."
• Henry Ford's mass-production techniques, which turned automobiles from a curiosity into the backbone of American industry despite Ford's lack of formal education.
• the investigation of the Challenger Disaster by maverick physicist Richard Feynman
• Steve Wozniak developed the first popular personal computer from a garage-based operation
• Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most well-known designers in history, yet was illiterate in Latin, and never attended a university.
• the intelligent design theory explaining the origins of our universe.
• Tired of being denied a voice in the elite liberal media, Conservative media finds its voice and is widely popular; FOX News, Drudge Report, Breitbart.com, NewsMax, National Review, Worldnetdaily.com.
• New astronomical discoveries are regularly reported by amateur astronomers, to then be published by "experts", advancing their careers in the process.
• The leading and most innovative internet browser, Firefox, was developed in a not-for-profit effort outside of the multibillion-dollar Microsoft and Google empires.
• Mikhail Kalashnikov was drafted by the Russian military, and despite being trained in poetry and literature, eventually was made a firearms designer. He drew upon inspiration from Russian literature, and the Bible to focus on simplicity, and dependability. This simplicity resulted in the atheist experts rejecting his designs, and declaring them unworkable. The experts were however ultimately proven wrong, when one of his designs went on to win an open design contest, and became the single most reliable and prevalent firearm in the world: the AK-47.
• In 1919, philanthropist Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 to the first person to fly a solo, non-stop flight between New York and Paris. Although many wealthy aviation experts attempted to win this prize, it was an unknown amateur pilot named Charles Lindbergh who won it.
• In 1873, homeschooled Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell discovered the system of equations bearing his name that describe electromagnetism.
• Michael Faraday, a son of a poor blacksmith, had no formal education and became literate only after age thirteen. However, he discovered that magnetic fields could produce electricity, which no expert had attempted. Faraday later denied all patents, knighthood, and large funerals.

Finance[edit]

• Studies show that the public does as good a job at picking good stock investments as the experts do. For example, stock market indexes typically outperform funds managed by experts.

Exploration and discovery[edit]

• Despite billions of research dollars, technical experts and equipment for professional astronomers, amateur astronomers play a crucial role in outer space discoveries. See Comet Lovejoy
• Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, despite the near-unanimous expert opinion that his first voyage was doomed to failure. On his second voyage, he successfully returned to the same place he had previously reached, despite the limited navigational skills of the experts of the time.

Journalism[edit]

• As noted in Conservapedia's breaking news, the lamestream media is being replaced by YouTube videos of breaking news.^[34]
• Large media outlets have begun presenting amateur reports from viewers. This began with CNN's iReport^[35] and later was adopted by Fox News (uReport^[36]) and others.

Law Enforcement[edit]

• Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught, not by the thousands of police experts swarming uselessly over a shut-down Watertown, MA, but by an individual keeping his eyes open in his own back yard.

Obstacles Created by Liberal Experts[edit]

Liberal and conservative experts have a self-interest in defending their theories, even if incorrect, and in perpetuating the system that has rewarded and applauded them. Some experts receive prodigious sums by promoting theories that are false or implausible, either in the media or in courtrooms.

Most conservatives who are experts in their own right reasonably fear a loss in grants, compensation or awards if they take a position at odds with a liberal counterpoint, especially one that has gained wide acceptance with the general population.

Despite their status as "experts," they have frequently made wrong predictions.^[37]

Examples[edit]

One expert said about the revolutionary design of the Eads bridge to transport heavy ships by railroad over the Mississippi River:^[32]

The Eads bridge continues to stand and carry much rail and car traffic to this day, despite the intense opposition by experts to its design.^[38]

The Best of the Public and the Invisible Hand[edit]

The concept of best of the public was first articulated on Conservapedia, although the effects have been observed by many great thinkers over the years. In a free society where the best of the public is allowed the latitude to excel, benefits accrue on many levels. Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, observed this principle in effect; in his book The Wealth of Nations, he described how the best of the public, when given the freedom to generate wealth, could generate a net beneficial and uplifting effect that goes beyond their individual enterprises. Smith called this the "Invisible Hand." However, he confined his observations to the sphere of economics, whereas the "Best of the Public" principle operates on many different levels.

Marriage and family, for example, serve as an illustration of the principle in the social arena. When marriage is allowed to function without government interference and misguided attempts at social engineering, the result is strong families; the best of the public raise children of superior virtue and character, who in turn grow up to pass those values on to their children. This, in turn, leads to a net positive effect on society known as the Invisible Hand of Marriage.

The same uplifting principle can be seen in any situation in which the best of the public is allowed to freely function and attain its potential. Events like the Olympics and the Tour de France permit the best of the public to strive on a physical level, resulting in many new record-breaking performances. The principle has seldom (as of yet) been applied to academic endeavors.

Opposition to the Best of the Public[edit]

Ordering of the Gospels[edit]

The Gospel of Mark was chronologically the first, and the most direct of the four Gospels. But it was written by an outsider, someone never invited by the Apostles into their inner circle. Mark was a young son of a woman disciple, an eyewitness who was not excluded during Jesus's ministry because Jesus welcomed his mother.

So the Gospel of Mark was misplaced as the second, rather than the first, in the ordering of the Gospels.

Movie critics[edit]

Movie critics try to put down films that typify the best of the public, such as Citizen Kane (1941), Blade Runner (1982), The Thing (1982), and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010). Citizen Kane is now considered the finest movie ever made, and the others were later honored also.

Government restrictions[edit]

History demonstrates that the best of the public can only thrive in a free society. The cream cannot rise to the top if it is weighted down; eagles cannot soar if they are shackled by an oppressive government. This understanding is at the heart of conservative wisdom.

For example: it is only in a free market economy that the best of the public will be truly free to drive innovation, develop new technologies, and generate new wealth. In an overly-regulated economy, the incentive to excel is greatly reduced. Innovation is replaced by stagnation, and achievement by mediocrity.

Elite gatekeepers[edit]

Likewise, in an academic environment in which elite "experts" serve as gatekeepers, truly innovative research is frequently squelched in favor of orthodoxy and blind consensus. The chilling effect "scientific experts" can have on honest research was clearly demonstrated by the Climategate scandal. Even when such "experts" do not actively conspire to suppress dissent, their use of expertise and consensus as a bully pulpit can still silence opposing (and possibly correct) viewpoints.

Mobs[edit]

It is important to note the difference between "Best of the Public" and "mob rule." Simply allowing the loudest or most numerous voices to prevail is not the same thing as allowing the best of the public to drive achievement. Sites such as Wikipedia operate on the principle of mob rule, and as a result, are plagued with bias, inaccuracy, and an inability to differentiate between significant insights and trivia.

One of the most pointed illustrations of this difference is the United States itself. The Founding Fathers, despite not naming it, applied the "Best of the Public" principle in their attempts to craft a new government. Realizing the danger of mob rule, they rejected a pure democracy in favor of a democratic Republic—a system designed to ensure that, while all of the public would have a voice in their new government, the best of the public would guide that government. To ensure that only the best of the public was selected, with the exception of members of the House of Representatives, officials in the federal government were not directly elected. The framers of the U.S. Constitution conceived of the Electoral College as a body of men who would exercise independent judgment in choosing the President and Vice President, not merely cast their ballots as directed by their state's voters. Moreover, electors in most states were initially appointed by state legislatures. Likewise, members of the Senate were originally selected by state legislatures. Judges, ambassadors, and other federal officials are chosen by the President and subject to approval by the Senate. Thus, although the people would directly choose their Congressmen, they would only indirectly choose other officials, and this filtering mechanism would ensure that only the best of the public was in charge of the government, rather than having mob rule.

By choosing this compromise, they clearly affirmed that they believed the best of the public was better than a group of experts; in contrast, the nations of Europe still firmly subscribed to the notion that government should be in the hands of elite "experts" (the ruling families and nobility.)

Obscurity[edit]

The "best of the public" must be able to be heard. There are millions of books published, and even more books self-published without approval of traditional publishing houses. Many authors protest^[39][40] that this is the greatest problem with modern publishing.

Experts versus the Best of the Public[edit]

Some confusion may exist over the difference between an "expert" and the "best of the public." The primary difference lies in the manner in which expertise is obtained. Most "experts" undergo highly specialized training, and in the process, become immersed in a sub-culture of like experts. This always carries the danger of groupthink and the pressure to conform. Also, academic credentialing consists almost entirely of repeating what professors say, rather than criticizing their errors.^[41]

For instance, someone interested in obtaining a job in the field of climate science (whom we shall refer to as "Student A") would likely pursue a degree at an established university. In so doing, he would be immersed in the academic subculture of researchers and professors who have already obtained their degrees in that field. He would be subjected to their political views, preconceptions, and biases, and would likely find that these were presented as facts and as an integral part of the subject. Any questioning or dissent on his part might be harshly punished. Ultimately, he would be faced with a difficult choice: abandon his desire to be an accredited expert in that field, dishonestly pretend to believe in the questionable claims of his superiors, or convince himself that those claims were, in fact, the truth.

On the other hand, someone interested in learning about climate science, but not interested in becoming a credentialed expert (we'll call him "Student B,") would likely study a diverse variety of sources. Not confined to the insular and clannish academic subculture, he would speak with a wider range of people, and be exposed to a wider range of viewpoints. This would, in all probability, cause him to examine the claims of the experts with a more critical eye. Ultimately, his studies would not gain him a degree or the official imprimatur of the scientific community, but his understanding of climate science would very likely be more rounded and complete than that of Student A. He very well might disagree with the experts' point of view; at the very least, he would have a much better knowledge of its shortcomings.

A traditional, expert-dominated inquiry would dismiss the contributions of Student B, since he has not an "expert" - he has not received the official approval of the gatekeepers. A "best of the public" approach would accept the contributions of both Student A and Student B, since they are both members of the public. However, it would not place Student A's contributions on a pedestal and make them sacrosanct and immune to questioning. Student B would be free to bring in HIS expertise as well; as a result, the ensuing discussion would be much less one-sided and more comprehensive, and thus far more likely to result in accurate and truthful insights. Perhaps many ideas coming from people like Student B would be wrong, unprofitable, and therefore rightly rejected; the "best of the public" approach recognizes that not all ideas from the public are better than those of experts. However, it is very likely that some ideas from people like Student B will be true and helpful. This is the difference between the two approaches: such ideas will be heard under the "best of the public" method.

Solution of the Poincaré Conjecture[edit]

The solution to the Poincaré conjecture, one of the greatest unsolved math problems of the 20th century, was by the little-known Gregori Perelman who worked on his own and merely posted his solution on the internet. He had never been offered a permanent job and was critical of the lack of openness among mathematical experts as he described a rare exception:^[42]

At great monetary sacrifice, Perelman refused to accept the awards conferred on him by experts after they eventually recognized the brilliance of his proof. A leading expert was accused of improperly trying to take credit for Perelman's work.

The Steklov Institute apparently declined to re-elect Perelman as a member in 2003, supposedly because the experts continued to doubt his proof. Reportedly Perelman has quit mathematics and was "jobless, living with his mother in St. Petersburg, and subsisting on her modest pension." He was quoted as saying:^[43]

In 2006, the mathematical establishment delivered another backhanded compliment to Perelman's achievement: he was awarded the Fields Medal on a shared basis with (1) an Obama-supporter who had jointly worked on a number theory problem, (2) a French mathematician-actor, and (3) a younger countryman who had achieved far less. This four-way split of the prize with far less significant achievements was inappropriate. Perelman declined this prize also.

References[edit]

See also[edit]

• Expert Error
• Independent review
• Essay:Everyday Heroes
• Free software movement