The potential for self-advocacy to lead to overconfidence and ignorance or dismissal of crucial or otherwise relevant facts has been debated. The discussion about democracy in medicine met claims the public cannot know about everything so experts are needed to produce knowledge on behalf of the public and make decisions for them; the public cannot make wrong decisions due to a lack of complete knowledge on the subject. This view renders the public unable to further academic research interests or shape academics' intellectual ideas and democracy as the public electing a party in charge that makes decisions for them.