Probably you have some specific thing in mind, otherwise the natural answer would be that experts are good for collective intelligence. I am worried about collective stupidity (like electing for president a person totally unfit to be president) and misinformation, such as fake-news. Since this weekend this also goes under the name “alternative facts”.

Education has an important task to teach where to find reliable information (written by experts, or near-experts). In the context of collective intelligence, I would like to venture the following opinion. It seems to be a commonly held truth, or belief, that since knowledge in various fields has expanded so much, no one person can know everything and therefore we can be good at only one specific thing, expert on that, and rely on other experts or collective intelligence for the rest. I think it is a too defensive ambition. Certain essential things to know are not so many, and therefore not so hard to have an overview of a few things. (This overview must be essential in finding knowledge.) In this regard the American college system, the idea of liberal arts education in the modern sense, is great. The trend world-wide seems to be the opposite, toward more specialized university degrees.

Here is a striking example. Some years ago, one prominent medical school started requiring its students to take a course in art history:

(The link is supposed to be nytimes.com/2002/05/19/nyregion/yale-s-life-or-death-course-in-art-criticism)

This has now spread to most top American medical schools and there have also appeared studies indicating that these art classes make medical doctors better at diagnosing patients.