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When everyone knows the same thing, that can be called a knowledge monopoly: public knowledge is monopolized by this supposed truth. Where education is reasonably good and universal, as in most of the developed world, there are many situations where everyone knows (or believes) the same thing: that the Earth is (approximately) spherical rather than flat, say. Of course there are always the odd people who contest what everyone else knows. The term "flat-earther" denigrates a person who rejects what everyone knows to be true, on any issue at all. Two points about literal flat-earthers: First, it is no secret that there are such people. Second, the evidence that flat-earthers are wrong is plain and easily understandable: ships disappearing over the horizon, satellites circling the Earth and enabling communications, photos of Earth taken by lunar astro-nauts. This book is about a different set of knowledge monopolies, those where it remains something of a secret to most of the general public - and, most important, to policy makers - that there is anyone who dissents from the common opinion; and when the very existence of dissent is a secret, it is nat-urally also a secret that those who dissent may actually have significant evi-dence on their side.