3 ms·

> I'm ... not so certain I'd expect to see a balanced or even accurate view (in cases), of Trotsky by Lenin, of Yosemite by Muir, of Wilbur Wright by his brothe

> I'm ... not so certain I'd expect to see a balanced or even accurate view (in cases), of Trotsky by Lenin, of Yosemite by Muir, of Wilbur Wright by his brother That's a good point about those examples; they are flawed in that respect. My point was that I'd rather read an article written by an expert and held to high editorial standards than one written by a crowd of people with various levels of knowledge. I'd also expect to learn much more uniquely valuable insight about an issue from the authors listed above, but that's a different issue. A philosphical question I heard on Car Talk: Do two people who don't know what they're talking about know more or less than one person who doesn't know what their talking about?

dredmorbius 11y ago
I'm a strong believer in expertise, and there's an argument to both modes (Britannica and Wikipedia). The latter seems to have won the past decade. Recruiting and vetting experts, and not falling into the trap of mindlessly accepting received wisdom, is tricky. So is false equivalence / false balance, and wisdom-of-crowds stuff. Though ... some of the wisdom-of-crowds bits suggest that if you can harness the sensibilities of the many, you may end up with better results than of a single individual. I'm not entirely sold. Area of active investigation.