Deciding Rightly

The NYTimes has a peice on American's lack of science savvy.

"American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century."

Folks on the left point to something like this as evidence that people cannot decide rightly. So many public issues involve science: "If you don't know what a cell is, you can't make sense of stem cell research." Of course many issues are the opposite. Many issues, such as which car you should drive, are such that experts cannot know what is best in your particular situation, and individuals are experts in such matters.

There are two issues here:
people are persuadable
a group full of people with imperfect knowledge can make decisions that are good enough

Because people are persuadable, when an object of knowledge moves from the realm of the well educated person to a political issue, we can explain the issue as evidence for our argument. This happens all the time with specific facts. While I do prefer that people understand the basic workings of physics, chemistry, and biology, but given that it is not so, I am content that people can be informed when an object of knowledge becomes a policy issue.

Second, the essense of democracy is that people can govern themselves, and that the best and brightest (aristocracy) are not required for governance. I am not a Jacksonian, suspiscious of the best and brightest, but am well aware of the dangers of too much confidence in the best and brightest. When you know you're right and the people reject your great ideas you have two choices, stand down and wait for them to embrace your ideas, or force it on them. If you stand down, you are a democrat, yielding to the will of the majority. If you impose, you are aristocratic (at best) and have two choices. When people resist, comprimise or repress. Too often, small minorities convinced of their ideological rightness have been willing to repress the majority to maintain their prefered policies. So, to conclude, I don't suspect the best and brightest, but I do suspect when they think they know better than the people.