Back by Popular Demand.
Ok, give this a try. You have the following three lines:
(X) ------
(A) -------
(B) ----
(C) ------
Now, which line is closest to X?
Chances are you said C, and you're right. A couple years back some psychological researchers gave this same question to a bunch of college students, although instead of just asking them like I asked you, they asked about 16 actors before them. Now the college students didn't know these were actors and when each of the 16 actors before them said A, about two thirds of the time the college student said A as well. Now why would a bunch of reasonable intelligent college students give an answer that is obviously wrong? Have colleges been lowing there standards too far? The researchers in question thought that it was a result of peer pressure, but I'm going to go down a different path. Image for a second that you have tons of data indicating one thing, and only one piece of data indicating another. Which are you more likely to go with? Even if you were the one to personally observer the dissenting piece of data? In fact, those college students were showing a rare trait, humility. They each realized (consciously or subconsciously) that the odds that everyone before them was right, and they instead were wrong (a type 1 statistical error), are very small.
To a certain degree I am writing this in response to a entry by Mercutio ( Be good citizens and stop voting), and he's not alone in his stance. The argument, which he relays to us from Hannah Arendt, goes something like this: If I vote and know little about the people or changes I am voting for, I am better off not voting and leaving such activity to people who know a lot about what they are voting for. He and Arendt may not be wrong. In fact, I have been hard pressed to find a single person who disagrees with this logic. Well, no one besides James Surowiecki, who's work The Wisdom of Crowds shows "The many are smarter than the few." Surowiecki's case example is Francis Galton's description of a busy marketplace where passersby lend their opinion to the probably weight of a cow. While the guesses themselves are very far off of the real value, the average is remarkable close. Closer in fact, than several experts opinions. Surprisingly enough, the crowd as a whole is smarter than the experts who's lively hoods depend on such estimates.
So now, you weigh in. Do we favor popular opinion? or do we leave intellect to the intellectuals?
taken from a verity of sources including: Mercutio's personal weblog "A Precarious Mindset," Wikipedia's entry "The Wisdom of Crowds," and "Rhuminations of a Starving Man" by Jim Tzenes.
Ok, give this a try. You have the following three lines:
(X) ------
(A) -------
(B) ----
(C) ------
Now, which line is closest to X?
Chances are you said C, and you're right. A couple years back some psychological researchers gave this same question to a bunch of college students, although instead of just asking them like I asked you, they asked about 16 actors before them. Now the college students didn't know these were actors and when each of the 16 actors before them said A, about two thirds of the time the college student said A as well. Now why would a bunch of reasonable intelligent college students give an answer that is obviously wrong? Have colleges been lowing there standards too far? The researchers in question thought that it was a result of peer pressure, but I'm going to go down a different path. Image for a second that you have tons of data indicating one thing, and only one piece of data indicating another. Which are you more likely to go with? Even if you were the one to personally observer the dissenting piece of data? In fact, those college students were showing a rare trait, humility. They each realized (consciously or subconsciously) that the odds that everyone before them was right, and they instead were wrong (a type 1 statistical error), are very small.
To a certain degree I am writing this in response to a entry by Mercutio ( Be good citizens and stop voting), and he's not alone in his stance. The argument, which he relays to us from Hannah Arendt, goes something like this: If I vote and know little about the people or changes I am voting for, I am better off not voting and leaving such activity to people who know a lot about what they are voting for. He and Arendt may not be wrong. In fact, I have been hard pressed to find a single person who disagrees with this logic. Well, no one besides James Surowiecki, who's work The Wisdom of Crowds shows "The many are smarter than the few." Surowiecki's case example is Francis Galton's description of a busy marketplace where passersby lend their opinion to the probably weight of a cow. While the guesses themselves are very far off of the real value, the average is remarkable close. Closer in fact, than several experts opinions. Surprisingly enough, the crowd as a whole is smarter than the experts who's lively hoods depend on such estimates.
So now, you weigh in. Do we favor popular opinion? or do we leave intellect to the intellectuals?
taken from a verity of sources including: Mercutio's personal weblog "A Precarious Mindset," Wikipedia's entry "The Wisdom of Crowds," and "Rhuminations of a Starving Man" by Jim Tzenes.
posted by jim at 8/18/2005 09:15:00 PM
3 Comments:
Lucky for me, I don't have any humility.
It seems similar to me to many psychological studies that have come out that show that humans are in fact followers. Many also show that people will believe a lie if it told to them often enough as truth. This is especially true of children.
Perhaps, people do display some humility with this. We should understand that our sense are limited, and perhaps this is what we are doing.
More likely, people are just afraid of being isolated, and as a group survival instinct and go along with the crowd. They figure that they may be wrong, but if they are they will not be wrong while everyone else is right. They prefer to be wrong with everyone else than to possibly be wrong where everyone else is right.
Or something.
I think the basis of my post is to challenge the assumption that the data we have suggests that humans are followers as opposed to relying on the precision of the group mentality (read back to Galton's experience). While its possible they are followers, it is also possible that as social animals they have evolved to pool their intelligence for the benefit of all (the abridged Nash-Smith theorem). It is possible that they desire to conform to the group, but it is also possible that they trust the group mentality given its precision. There are no studies to indicate one over the other (at least that I can find).
If the question was worded "which is closest in length", then I would be tempted to agree with you, but if it really was just "which one is closest", it could be interpreted as distance between them rather than difference in length, and so any one person interpreting it that way could set the standard for everyone else, without any sort of making things up to fit in.
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