Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Dietrich Franz 
Author-Name: Spiekermann Kai 
Author-workplace-name: METEOR
Title: Epistemic Democracy with Defensible Premises
Abstract: The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the `wisdom of crowds''. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises---voter independence---is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem''s misleading conclusion that ''large crowds are infallible''. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ''large crowds are fallible but better than small groups''. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of deliberation and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework.
Keywords: mathematical economics; 
Series: Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 2010
Number: 066
File-URL: http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/objects/guid:d71cf81d-b57c-45f4-bc14-125fec22122d/datastreams/ASSET1/content
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 489044
Handle: RePEc:unm:umamet:2010066