Evolution and the 'Wisdom of Crowds'

An anonymous reader writes "An essay by a developer of recommendation systems makes a case for why so many people have trouble grasping Darwin's theory of evolution. Downplaying its conflict with religion, the essay suggests that evolution is in a specific class of "equilibrium seeking" concepts that tend to be extremely counterintuitive to most people. The hypothesis is supported by the observation that so many people reject the notion that evolution-like systems such as Wikipedia, prediction markets, and recommendation systems can actually be effective. Particularly fascinating is the description of his surprisingly simple algorithm for competing in the Netflix prize contest."

Comments

Re:typo

[clickclickdrone]

> 85% of Americans self-identify as Christians. (2002)
> 12% Atheists and agnostics nationwide. (2004)
> 11% of the US population identify with a faith other than Christianity (2004)
That's 108%. OK, some are 2004 stats and some 2002 but even allowing for that, either the numbers are screwy or trends are changing *very* fast.