What is this theory called?

H

Hutchman

Active member
Hey guys, was wondering if you could help me out.

What is the theory called whereby if you ask a large number of randomly selected people, their answer to a specialized question is more likely to be correct than if you asked a specialist in the field?

If you know what it's called or where I could get more info on it, I'd be most grateful.

Thanks!
 
Collective wisdom or group wisdom?

I remember reading a book on game theory where this was talked about. A large group of people guessing the location of a lost submarine, when averaged, ended up to be less than a quarter mile off.
 
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Drew Ott said:
Collective wisdom or group wisdom?

I remember reading a book on game theory where this was talked about. A large group of people guessing the location of a lost submarine ended up to be less than a quarter mile off.
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Thanks Drew, yeah I think it has something to do with game theory now you come to mention it. I remember reading about it a while back but couldn't remember in what capacity. I'll have a look around.
Thanks again.
 
dvxhutch said:
Thanks Drew, yeah I think it has something to do with game theory now you come to mention it. I remember reading about it a while back but couldn't remember in what capacity. I'll have a look around.
Thanks again.
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No problem. It's the same concept that is used future's markets. There was a proposed "terrorism future's market" where people would invest in potential terror attacks. The idea was that if a whole bunch of people put money on, say, a subway bombing on October 15th, the police would be able to prepare adequately for said attack. Fortunately it never got support.
 
From Wikipedia: Dave Pollard’s restatement of Collective wisdom: "Many cognitive, coordination and cooperation problems are best solved by canvassing groups (the larger the better) of reasonably informed, unbiased, engaged people. The group's answer is almost invariably much better than any individual expert's answer, even better than the best answer of the experts in the group."That hypothesis is a very different re-defining of collective wisdom.What's more I think it's been disproven time and time again. E.G. The ask the audience option on who wants to be a millionaire.
 
Hutchman said:
Hey guys, was wondering if you could help me out.

What is the theory called whereby if you ask a large number of randomly selected people, their answer to a specialized question is more likely to be correct than if you asked a specialist in the field?

If you know what it's called or where I could get more info on it, I'd be most grateful.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You might be thinking of The Wisdom of Crowds, a book from 2004 by James Surowiecki. It was a best seller IIRC, and much discussed.
 
vip77 said:
From Wikipedia: Dave Pollard’s restatement of Collective wisdom: "Many cognitive, coordination and cooperation problems are best solved by canvassing groups (the larger the better) of reasonably informed, unbiased, engaged people. The group's answer is almost invariably much better than any individual expert's answer, even better than the best answer of the experts in the group."That hypothesis is a very different re-defining of collective wisdom.What's more I think it's been disproven time and time again. E.G. The ask the audience option on who wants to be a millionaire.
Click to expand...

Drew Ott said:
No problem. It's the same concept that is used future's markets. There was a proposed "terrorism future's market" where people would invest in potential terror attacks. The idea was that if a whole bunch of people put money on, say, a subway bombing on October 15th, the police would be able to prepare adequately for said attack. Fortunately it never got support.
Click to expand...

The pentagon's DERPA division came up with this. The same folks who came up with the internet, GPS and the gay bomb. William Poindexter got in trouble over this as some folks didn't approve of "betting" on terrorist attacks. A private firm grabbed the oppertunity though. http://www.intrade.com/v4/home/

Looks like they don't have enough traders to get a "collective" opinion though.
 
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