Who is John Galt?

     John Galt is the author of The Annals of the Parish of New Scotland. 
     How old is Ann? is another matter. Ann is 37, by my reckoning.
     These questions are asked repeatedly by the characters in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
     Partly through her novels, Rand founded a school of philosophy called "objectivism". Objectivists believe that there are elite people in the world, born with capacities that common people do not have. The objectivists also believe that they are this set of elite people. I couldn't disagree more. I not only don't believe that there is a set of elites on the planet who are born better than others, I don't even believe that people are born more intelligent than one another. I believe that all of the differences we can measure are the product of education, which begins at birth, not at age 6.
     Anyway, if you should meet a Randist or objectivist, and he or she should ask if you know who John Galt is, you'll be able to answer.