Sandra Navarro

Professor Cavallo T/TH 12:30-1:50pm

In James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds, there are many prime examples of

people making decisions in groups which closely resemble different forms of government, even

influencing the effectiveness of these particular decisions.

One such example is that of the study of 1943 by Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross of Iowa

farmers and how they came to use a more productive hybrid seed. The group of farmers “… did

not seed their entire fields with the hybrid corn. Instead, they set aside a small part of a field and

tested the corn for themselves first” (61). They of course were mindful of their neighbor’s

success, but this was not enough to persuade them. Each individual farmer had to see how that

seed grew in their particular soil leading each farmer to make an independent choice for

himself/herself. This closely resembles a democracy. In a democracy each individual vote is

separate and each person votes depending on their own conviction acting on their own private

information. Taking into account that not everyone’s soil is the same and that planting a whole

new crop is both expensive and a strain on the land, the decision this group of farmers made was

very good. They reduced their risk of individual failure by deciding for themselves whether or

not this crop would be beneficial to them or not.

Next, the author elaborates on the discovery of the SARS virus. Usually when one thinks

of the discovery of a new disease, one imagines it is the work of one lone scientist, yet this is not

so. The SARS virus was discovered by a group of labs collaborating from all around the world

loosely organized by the WHO (World Health Organization). The WHO has no legal authority to

tell any lab what to do but in this case it did not need to, because “The labs agreed that they

would share all the relevant data they had, and they agreed to talk every morning … the labs

would figure out the most efficient way to divide up the work” (160). There was no “top-down”

rule instead this association of labs grew to resemble a republic. There was no central authority

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yet in a sense their central authority was comprised of all of them put together. They held each

other accountable and split up the responsibilities amongst themselves much like the separation

of powers. They even had checks and balances as they called each other each morning to report

on their findings. In the end, this proved to be an extremely successful strategy, because

“Working on their own, any one of those labs might very well have taken months or years to

isolate the virus. Together it took them just a matter of weeks” (160). The communal work of

these labs benefitted the rest of the world immensely, because they did a spectacular job of

organizing themselves.

Another such group decision-making example is that of the MMT group at NASA

concerning the shuttle Columbia. The question in case was that of the damage produced by a

piece of foam impacting the shuttle. This damage could have dire consequences upon reentry of

the shuttle depending on the size of said piece of foam. However, the team investigating this case

along with other groups was the MMT, and they arrived at the conclusion that there was nothing

they could do about it. The leader of MMT, Linda Ham, decided for both her group and the rest

of groups that “… the foam strike was inconsequential. More important, she decided for

everyone else in the meeting that it was inconsequential, too” (174). This decision was a

complete disaster as the shuttle was not able to safely deliver the astronauts back to earth. Linda

Ham’s group resembled a monarchy with her in charge and basically influencing everyone

toward the same decision she had made prior to reviewing the evidence. This is not to say that

she was the only one at fault since anyone in her group could have contradicted her opinion from

the start but it is clear why this did not happen. What happened with the MMT group was that

“Rather than begin with the evidence and work toward a conclusion, the team members worked

in the opposite direction. More egregiously, their skepticism about the possibility that something

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might really be wrong made them dismiss the need to gather more information, especially in the

form of pictures, leading to DAT’s requests for on-orbit images being rejected” (177). Since they

had already decided the outcome, in their minds there was nothing left to do but dismiss the

evidence suggesting otherwise and give up on alternate routes altogether. Plus, the leader of the

group ran their meetings in such a way that her questions were structured only to confirm her

beliefs and there was no discussion about it. This monarchy type rule was essential in the process

the group went through to come to the wrong conclusion. Their group decision was too biased

and polarized to be correct and their leader was too entrenched in her own view perspective.

In addition to a good group decision-making process, trust is the essential backbone in

society and business. Trust allows one business to conduct itself more assuredly and without

fearing too much loss or failure. In society, people must be able to trust others for the most basic

functions like being protected by authority figures and not suspecting every person of wanting to

take advantage of them. Trust forms stability and security in society and without it there is

imbalance and often fear and anger by those being duped by other scheming individuals.

For example, in the scientific community unexpressed faith or trust is essential to new

developments and discoveries of diseases, cures, theories, etc. The community does not rely on

“… an elite group of scientists to pronounce on the validity of new ideas, scientist simply toss

their ideas out into the world, trusting that the ones that survive are the ones that deserve to”

(169). This seems a little hap hazardous but in essence this is as productive and efficient as

people can make it. The reason for this is that “ … if researchers were constantly testing each

other’s results, they’d spend all their time retracing old ground instead of breaking new ground”

(169). This instilled trust makes science all the more progressive and is extremely important to

society.

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Another example of trust being important in society is a much simpler one. Going to the

store on any particular day to buy an electronic appliance, the consumer usually buys it and trusts

it will work. A regular citizen can “… be relatively certain that whatever product [he/she] buys

—–a product that, in all likelihood, will have been made in a country nine thousand miles

away–––will probably work pretty well” (124). Businesses usually look for long term profit and

success rather than exploiting just one customer who will never do business with them again.

This is why businesses establish trust with their customers and have a group of reliable constant

clients.

The credibility of a business depends on the credibility of their actions, For instance, the

Underwriters Laboratory (UL) puts its stamp of approval on safe electrical equipment. If

however it “…started affixing its UL mark to lamps that electrocuted people, pretty soon it

wouldn’t have a business” (127). The value of their business depends on whether or not people

can trust the decisions they make and that these decisions can be verified. This adds another

layer of security and makes for a much more stable economy.

The combined factors of trust and wise group decisions as well as other such factors

makes a crowd of people much wiser than the wisest person in that group. Humans are born to

interact and make connections with others to produce something more beneficial than they could

produce by themselves. It is important to recognize this process and essential in society. With

people being more connected than ever with advancing technology, it is crucial to fall back on

the basics of producing wiser decisions together for a better world.

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