"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

The Delphi Method

[Illbay]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

Another product of the RAND Corporation.

The wisdom of averages

[thethibs]

So what we've always thought was the wisdom of crowds turns out to be the wisdom of averages. That does make more sense.