The "Wisdom of Crowds" versus "experts"........ Who is smarter?
By James72
@James72 (26790)
Australia
February 18, 2007 10:40pm CST
Try and imagine yourself on "Who wants to be a millionaire" in the hot seat and about to answer a question that will win you one million dollars if you get it right.....
You have two life lines. "Ask the audience" and "Phone a friend". You may use only one of these life lines in this case (I know this is not how it works on the show but humour me for the sake of this topic ok!)
The "expert" is a long term family friend who is highly educated and well respected in the scientific and business community. He/She has a very broad range of knowledge.....
Which life line would you use? Would you have more faith in the expert or the audience?? I will share the true statistical answer of who is right more than not once I have received a number of answers and explanations of why.....
I found this extremely interesting!!
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1 response
@Thomas73 (1467)
• Switzerland
19 Feb 07
I'd certainly call my 'expert' friend, as the so-called 'popular wisdom' is all too often mistaken. A simple example: do you think that there is more iron in spinach than in any other vegetable? Popular 'wisdom' will tell you that this is true. In fact, an 'expert' will tell you that this isn't true at all, but that this 'urban legend' stems from a published miscalculation made decades ago, but which stuck to the mind of people for some reason.
Does that make sense? ;)
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@James72 (26790)
• Australia
19 Feb 07
Certainly makes sense! But the right answer is the right answer and you will be surprised at the actual "percentage correct" rates both the friend and audience return as a whole! The figures I have found are obviously across the board so I am unable to determine what were deemed as easy or harder questions but the overall result is very interesting! I will share them soon; so far, all responses have been along the lines of what I too would do..... Thanks for the response.
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