"Wisdom of Crowds" Works For Individuals Too

ideonexus writes "Take a crowd of people and have them guess how many jelly beans are in a jar, and the average of their answers will be remarkably accurate. Now researchers have found the same goes for asking one person to guess about the same thing several times. Accuracy improved when the individual was given longer periods of time between guesses." The anonymous author of the Economist piece, not quoting the researchers, says the finding bolsters the "generate and test" model of creative thinking.

Comments

In related news...

[morgan_greywolf]

In related news, students were found to do far better on multiple choice tests when given an unlimited number of guesses at each question. Even students that didn't study eventually got As.

A little biased

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Granted, the tests were done on the Price is Right.

"600 jelly beans?"

"Higher"

"900?"

"Looower...."

From the I-am-large-I-contain-multitudes dept.?

[lilomar]

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then! I contradict myself!

Explains

[Paranatural]

This explains why there's so much informative discussion here at slashdot. N o one knows much of anything, but if you throw enough wild assed guesses at something, one of them is bound to be right, right?

Ah duh!

[mspohr]

The amazing discovery they made is that when people had time to think about a question, they gave better answers. This is profound.

Re:Ah duh!

[Talderas]

The point is that while thinking long and hard about some problems can be helpful (e.g. designing something complex and technical), for other kinds of problems, added thought can hinder (e.g. when there are many confounding unknowns).

So that explains why most /.ers are single.

Re:Wisdom of the Crowds"

[thethibs]

More like it takes a thousand Harvard graduates in conference to show the common sense of one redneck. But who's counting?