Voting the "public" off the island...

I just read an interesting article by Marten Scheffer and Frances Westley. It is from 2007 so some of you may have already read it. Here is a link: The Evolutionary Basis of Rigidity: Locks in Cells, Minds and Society

They make a number of important points, but the part I keep coming back to is their discussion about a study (Boulding 1964), in which groups who had a "devil's advocate" among their members consistently outperformed groups that didn't when solving complex problems. BUT, the "devil's advocate" was always the first person eliminated when the groups were asked to vote one person out of their group.

So, what does this mean for us public participaters...