> Constructive criticism is part of a healthy debate but should not be used as cover to inform people their participation in this discussion group is not welcome – which I suspect is the message Dr. Traynor recently received. At least that’s my view from this distant vantage point. I appreciate Dr. Traynor’s efforts to improve our knowledge of bees and beekeeping and hope she will continue to participate in these discussions.

Agreed. Also, I am sorry that I came down hard on Charlie. I suspect neither one of them feels particularly welcome. But the fact is, some people need to improve their communication skills. An example would be someone who is unable to form complete sentences, or pronounce difficult words like "anonymous." Another would be the sort of person who buries us with jargon riddled mumbo jumbo. However, in no group will everyone "be on the same page." As Allen Dick used to say (probably still does) "if everyone is agreeing, nobody is thinking." A group like this must welcome divergent opinions, different levels of knowledge and language skills, but guard against trolls and self-promoting charlatans. If you are still reading, now this:


Knowledge Inequality and Empowerment in Small Deliberative Groups 

One of the core propositions of deliberative theory holds that preferences among debate participants should be responsive to well-reasoned and well-informed arguments, at least on occasion. When an informed discussion among debate participants reconciles initially conflicting claims, the agreement achieves a degree of legitimacy beyond that of majority rule.

* Deliberation has the potential to remedy knowledge inequalities by empowering those who enter into deliberation with relatively low levels of knowledge. 

Consider two reasons for this belief. First, the kind of discourse envisioned in deliberation, an exchange of reasoned arguments, can be educative, and perhaps especially so for those with low knowledge levels. Second, the discussion itself may be more constructive under inequality in that speakers may recognize the need to explain their background knowledge and assumptions, assumptions which they may take for granted without the presence of inequality. In this latter case, one might expect that moderate inequality will foster the most constructive exchange; the prospects for enhanced discussion are likely remote when the knowledge gap itself is simply unbridgeable. 

We find that, contrary to the reasonable fears of some, inequality in and of itself is not fatal to deliberation, and indeed it appears that moderate amounts of knowledge inequality improves participants’ satisfaction with deliberative discourse. While under some circumstances inequality can lead to alienation and resentment, in other circumstances deliberation can be empowering to those who find themselves on the lower end of the knowledge distribution. 

Esterling, Kevin M. and Fung, Archon and Lee, Taeku, Knowledge Inequality and Empowerment in Small Deliberative Groups: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment at the Oboe Townhalls (2011). APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1902664

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