There is a difference between "subject matter experts", and the people who are experts in the field of truth discovery.  Surprisingly for most people, subject matter experts can be wrong even in a claim when it's related to their field of expertise, and when they are wrong hubris often plays a part, but there are also a whole host of other reasons why they might be wrong.Experts who may be the best in their field of study still often disagree with each other, and even a democratic approach (as if truth can be defined by popular vote among the best experts) can still fail, especially when mob rule becomes the norm.  Examples that come to mind are the scientific communities of Galileo Galilei, Louis Pasteur, and Nikolai Tesla, which communities all viewed the claims of these revolutionary thinkers as out of step with the facts.  In those cases (please note that this still happens today more often than you might think) the communities were wrong, and the mavericks were right.There are also a number of personal, and even professionally instituted biases that can influence the opinions of even the presumably most unbiased and pragmatic experts. In fact for claims on which there is tremendous debate there is a direct relationship between confidence in an opinion and the likelihood of that opinion being biased.  The more confident you are, the more likely it is that you are biased.  In short, for highly debated topics the most accurate assessment, or at least the most honest one, is the one that simply says "I don't know".There will be experts who are right, and they are not always the leaders in their field, nor are they always in the majority opinion of those in their field.  The task set before each and every person as they go through life is to determine who among these experts are right in each situation.And that's hard.  It's really hard.  But in one way or another your life, livelihood, and living conditions, or that of your children, depend on you correctly adopting the most truthful assessments for life's greatest mysteries.So to our rescue there is this science ... the science of truth discovery.  It's a branch of philosophy, but after my philosophy classes I found very little of it beneficial in helping the average person gain the skills necessary to distinguish between truth and falsehoods.We need "truth discovery experts", not philosophers, to train the rest of the world on how to do that. Even most scientists don't know how to do that, and really they should be the first ones to take a class on discovering truth."But the scientific method", you say. Most of them don't even have a practical and clear understanding of the scientific method or, more importantly, most don't know how to apply it properly.A person well trained in the methods and techniques of employing the best algorithms for ascertaining truth should even be more right more often than even the experts in the field…

For decades I've been fascinated with engines for success ... car engines, social  engines like facebook, and financial engines like business plans.  Any puny old human, with the right engine and fuel (society and resources) could make almost anything happen that they really wanted to. They could do literally anything, with the right engine. Every engine runs on tried and true principles ... physics, human behavior, supply and demand, etc.  Understood correctly, these principles can be leveraged through following a set of instructions, a "program" if you will, to create and operate new and more powerful engines.  The fundamental design of these programs, these sets of instructions, is called an algorithm.  Algorithms are often thought to be programs ... but they are far more than programs or a sets of instructions. Algorithms are the "how does it work".  It identifies the motivations, the tools, the resources, and everything necessary to do that work, including the principles by which it works.  Algorithms are basically "How it works" manuals, and utilizes abstract thought, comprehension, and purpose. In fact, algorithms are the only thing that can be patented for utility patents. You can't patent a "what" idea ... of course unless it's a design patent (which only protect the decorative aspect of a thing).  Most people don't know that.  Here's an idea: a teletransporter that beams tocos from my freezer to my oven to my mouth, all with the push of a button.  Sounds cool, but that can't be patented, because it's not a "How" idea (eg. how the transporter works ... and what instructions must be followed to create this thing).  It's not an algorithm.  Mere instructions can't be patented either ... a patent has to have an objective, and it has to work by fundamental principles that can be and have been demonstrated. But I'm still selling algorithms short.  The most powerful things about algorithms, the "how does it work" stuff in life, is that our brain lives on algorithms.  Thinking is an algorithm, in fact the only thing that separates our brain from computers is that we don't follow instructions.  We follow algorithms.  That's what it means to be alive.  And computers are not alive.  They don't really know how things work, they don't understand the fundamental principles by which things work, or how those things fit together.  A neural network seems to come close ... but no.  It just understands relationships, not abstract thought ... and algorithms are to abstract thought as instructions or programs are to computation. The most important and fundamental algorithms on which our brains operate are those in which we invest for ascertaining truth. These algorithms for truth guide and shape everything we do ... every decision, every opinion, every understanding, every hope and fear and passion.  Algorithms for truth lead us the way a map leads an explorer, or the way a rabbit's vision leads them as they cross a busy street. Yes, like the decisions a bunny makes crossing a freeway, if we…