So You Think You're Smarter Than A CIA Agent
When 3,000 average citizens were asked to forecast global events, some consistently made predictions that turned out to be more accurate than those with classified intelligence.
Hasnain says:
"Galton was at a fair where about 800 people had tried to guess the weight of a dead ox in a competition. After the prize was awarded, Galton collected all the guesses so he could figure out how far off the mark the average guess was.
It turned out that most of the guesses were really bad — way too high or way too low. But when Galton averaged them together, he was shocked:
The dead ox weighed 1,198 pounds. The crowd's average: 1,197."
(slightly better source: http://www.economist.com/news/21589145-how-sort-best-rest-whos-good-forecasts)
Posted on 2014-04-02T16:52:19+0000