DOCSLIB.ORG

Francis Galton

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Francis Galton Francis Galton William Revelle Northwestern University Francis Galton (1822-1911) was among the most influential psychologists of the 19th century. He did pioneering work on the correlation coefficient, behavior genetics and the measurement of individual differences. He introspectively examined the question of free will and introduced the lexical hypothesis to the study of personality and character. In addition to psychology, he did pioneering work in meteorology and introduced the scientific use of fingerprints. Whenever he could, he counted. Sir Francis Galton (Feb 16, 1822 - Jan 17, 1911) the time he was eight, had accomplished what a nor- was among the preeminent psychologists of the 19th mal 16 year old could do. Thus Terman estimated century. Born to a wealthy English family he was Galton’s IQ as surpassing 200. able to devote his life to a variety of scientific in- Although trained in mathematics and medicine quiries. Although best known to psychologists for at Cambridge, when he was 22 the death of his fa- his pioneering work on the correlation coefficient ther and the resulting inheritance allowed him to and the study of individual differences in intellec- forgo continuing in medicine and instead to sat- tual ability, he also did fundamental research on be- isfy the desire to travel he had acquired as a bril- havior genetics, meteorology, and the use of finger- liant if somewhat cavalier student. In 1845 Gal- prints for identification. ton travelled through Egypt (which at the time in- Galton was born on February 16, 1822 near cluded Sudan) and went slightly beyond Khartoum Sparkbrook (now part of the inner city of Birming- and briefly explored the upper regions of the White ham, England) to a successful Quaker family who and the Blue Nile, before continuing on to Syria, manufactured guns during the early 1800s. Through Lebanon and exploring the Jordan River towards the his maternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, he was Dead Sea. Such travels, which by end of the 19th a half cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton was the century would seem a natural part of a young per- youngest of seven children and his early childhood son’s “Grand Tour”, at the time were considered ex- memories reflected the love of his family as they in- otic and temporarily satisfied his wanderlust. Gal- culcated him with a love of literature, science, and ton spent the next few years enjoying the idle life of mathematics. Based on Karl Pearson’s four volume a country squire, hunting and fishing while simulta- biography of Galton, Terman (1917) analyzed Gal- neously reading and thinking about science. ton’s intellectual accomplishments as a child and es- In 1850 he proposed to the Royal Geographical timated Galton’s mental age as a child as roughly Society to undertake (and finance) an exploration twice his physical age. That is, at age five he was of South West Africa. For the next two years his reasoning as would a normal ten year old, and by journeys in what is now Namibia led him through previously unexplored (by Europeans) regions. His writings describing the perils of lions, elephants and his dealings with marauding and feuding tribesmen were extraordinarily detailed and yet remain to this contact: William Revelle [email protected] day enjoyable to read. He measured longitude by Version of March 1, 2014 the lunar distance method used by sailors without To appear in Cautin, R. and Lilienfeld, S (Eds) The Ency- access to accurate chronometers; latitude by the tra- clopedia of Clinical Psychology. Wiley-Blackwell ditional use of a sextant to measure the elevation of This is the submitted LATEXversion and might differ from stars; and elevations of mountains by the tempera- the final published version. ture of boiling water. Upon his return to England he 2 WILLAM REVELLE wrote up a descriptive narrative of his travels (The study genetics. narrative of an explorer in Tropical South Africa, Having read the work of Quetelet on the distribu- 1853) as well as a thoughtful survival guide for the tion of many natural phenomenon, Galton was most traveller (The art of travel, 1855). The acclaim he taken with the idea of what has come to be called received for his travels and his writings led to his the normal curve and variation around the central election to the RGS and led him to devote his con- tendency. He designed and had built a mechanical siderable energies in scientific pursuits rather than apparatus, a quincunx, to demonstrate how the nor- his previous life of hunting with his country friends. mal normal curve is the result of many independent By 1862 his interests had turned to meteorology; random events. Based upon these observations was by organizing data collection all over western Eu- his letter to Nature in 1874 proposing a basic met- rope he was able to distinguish between cyclonic ric (his “common statistical scale” which was con- (where the winds blow counter clockwise) and anti- ceptually equivalent to the modern z score) which cyclonic weather patterns. The style of maps he expressed deviations from the median in terms of developed to show these patterns of low and high the probable error (or half the interquartile range). pressure zones are used to this day. His interest in To Galton, the advantages of the median and the in- meteorology led him to be a member of the mete- terquartile range were that they were easier to find orological council for 34 years where he continued by casual observation than were the mean and stan- to advance the science of meteorology. dard deviation. Galton’s interest in meteorology illustrates his Subsequent work with the genetics of height in fascination with numbers. His personal maxim was humans and size in the garden pea led him to in- to “Count where ever you can” and he did so by ob- troduce the concept of reversion to mediocrity (re- serving everything from the number of fidgets ob- gression to the mean) and to the concept of the re- served during a lecture to personal ratings of the gression slope relating parent to offspring. With a beauty of women throughout the United Kingdom. flash of insight based upon the different slopes of He developed simple instruments to help him record parent to child and child to parent, he derived the his observations, such as pricking a pin into a note co-relation index (1888). Subsequent work by Pear- card in different locations as he listened to a lecture son, Wentworth, and Yule led to the formalization of and observed people fidgeting. this concept as what we now know as the Pearson Inspired by reading On The Origin of Species Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. by his cousin, Charles Darwin, Galton published a His later research on individual differences number of articles examining how scientific, liter- (1891) led to his introduction of using fingerprints ary, and legal talent tended to run in families. He as a means of identification. Galton realized that considered the obvious explanation of social class for fingerprints to be useful there needs to be evi- and social opportunity but marshalled evidence such dence for constancy across the life span, that there is as that even among the elite students who attended suitable variation in fingerprints to define someone Cambridge the top scorers on English or Mathe- uniquely, and finally, that one could develop a lexi- matics examinations were much more frequently con of fingerprints, such that an expert could iden- related than expected by chance. His analysis re- tify them. He was able to demonstrate that all three sulted in several volumes studying the sources of conditions held. eminence, the first of which Hereditary Genius: His interests in measuring individual differences An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (1869) led him to arrange (at his own expense) to collect elaborates his evidence that talent runs in families data at the International Exposition of 1894 in Lon- and that the effect is weaker the more remote the don. He arranged to measure “Keenness of Sight relationship. Galton proudly reports in his biogra- and of Hearing; Color Sense, Judgment of Eye; phy (Memories of my life, 1908) the letter he re- Breathing Power; Reaction Time; Strength of Pull ceived from Darwin expressing great enthusiasm for and of Squeeze; Force of Blow, Span of Arms; the book. A subsequent volume on the topic of the Height, both standing and sitting; and Weight”. The sources of scientific eminence led to him to consider success of his measurements at the International Ex- the sources of talent due to nature or nuture (his position led him to continue collect similar data at a terms) as well as the power of the twin design to museum for the next six years. GALTON 3 In considering which individual differences are If he had merely contributed the correlation coeffi- important for understanding and describing char- cient, his impact would have been substantial. But acter, Galton reviewed his basic genetic approach, he went far beyond that by starting the fields of be- the use of the twin method in quantitative genetics, havior genetics, introducing the nature/nurture dis- and reported on his own introspection on the little tinction, formalizing the study of ability, introduc- amount of his behavior that exemplified free will ing the lexical hypothesis, and much more. He jus- rather than on the normal consequences of habit and tifiably is known as one of the great polymaths of situation (Measurement of Character, 1884). He the 19th century. continued his discussion of determining the rele- vant aspects of character by consulting Roget’s The- See Also saurus and found at least 1,000 words that differed slightly in meaning when describing character.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 9 the Beautiful Skulls of Schiller and the Georgian Girl Quantitative and Aesthetic Scaling of the Races, 1770–1850
    9 The beautiful skulls of Schiller and the Georgian girl Quantitative and aesthetic scaling of the races, 1770–1850 Robert J. Richards Isak Dinesen, in one of her gothic tales about art and memory, spins a story of a nobleman’s startling recognition of a prostitute he once loved and abandoned. He saw her likeness in the beauty of a young woman’s skull used by an artist friend. After we had discussed his pictures, and art in general, he said that he would show me the prettiest thing that he had in his studio. It was a skull from which he was drawing. He was keen to explain its rare beauty to me. “It is really,” he said, “the skull of a young woman [. .].” The white polished bone shone in the light of the lamp, so pure. And safe. In those few seconds I was taken back to my room [. .] with the silk fringes and the heavy curtains, on a rainy night of fifteen years before. (Dinesen 1991, 106‒107)1 The skulls pictured in Figure 9.1 have also been thought rare beauties and evocative of something more. On the left is the skull of a nameless, young Caucasian female from the Georgian region. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the great anatomist and naturalist, celebrated this skull, prizing it because of “the admirable beauty of its formation” (bewundernswerthen Schönheit seiner Bildung). He made the skull an aesthetic standard, and like the skull in Dinesen’s tale, it too recalled a significant history (Blumenbach 1802, no. 51). She was a young woman captured during the Russo-Turkish war (1787–1792) and died in prison; her dissected skull had been sent to Blumenbach in 1793 (Dougherty and Klatt 2006‒2015, IV, 256‒257).
    [Show full text]
  • Galton's Gleam
    Significance In press, , June 2020 Galton’s Gleam: Visual Thinking & Graphic Discoveries Michael Friendly & Howard Wainer If I can't picture it, I can't understand it. --- Albert Einstein magine a scene at a recent restaurant meal with family and friends. Close your eyes. How vividly can you see the table, the restaurant setting in your mind’s eye? What was your server wearing? Do I you have images of the sequence of dishes? For some people, this is easy and natural; others can remember many details, but they can’t replay the scene in mental images. Discussions of the ability to construct and remember such images are sometimes categorized under such headings as “inner vision”, “graphic communication”, or “visual insight”. More evocatively, in the context of scientific discovery, such images might be called “a gleam in the mind’s eye,” something that Einstein evokes in our opening quote: visual understanding of some phenomenon better understood than in tables or words. In this account we focus on some particularly interesting gleams that originate with Francis Galton Specifically, we highlight Galton’s initial contributions to the modern science of mental imagery, followed by some of the remarkable discoveries he made using his own visualization abilities. Galton’s contributions to science The Victorian polymath Sir Francis Galton was among the most dominant scientific and intellectual figures in Victorian England (Brookes, 2004; Bulmer, 2003). He made important contributions in many areas: biology and genetics (studies of inheritance, twin studies), forensic science (fingerprints), geography (exploration of Africa), meteorology (weather maps), psychology and cognitive science (word associations, mental imagery, standardized questionnaires).
    [Show full text]
  • What Should We Do with the Social Construct of Race?
    Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Senior Theses and Projects Student Scholarship Spring 2013 What Should we Do with the Social Construct of Race? Jason A. Gordon Trinity College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses Part of the African American Studies Commons, African History Commons, African Languages and Societies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, European History Commons, History of Philosophy Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Philosophy of Science Commons, and the Social History Commons Recommended Citation Gordon, Jason A., "What Should we Do with the Social Construct of Race?". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2013. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/305 Philosophy Senior Thesis What should we do with the Social Construct of Race? A Senior Thesis Written by: Jason Gordon 2013 Gordon 1 Contents Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 1: The Beginnings ............................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 2: Early Cultivation .......................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Galton, Terman, Cox: the Distinctive Volume II in Genetic Studies Of
    GCQXXX10.1177/0016986220921360Gifted Child QuarterlySimonton 921360research-article2020 Article Gifted Child Quarterly 1 –10 Galton, Terman, Cox: © 2020 National Association for Gifted Children Article reuse guidelines: The Distinctive Volume II sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986220921360 10.1177/0016986220921360 in Genetic Studies of Genius journals.sagepub.com/home/gcq Dean Keith Simonton1 Abstract With just one exception, all of the volumes in Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius report the results of a longitudinal study of more than a thousand intellectually gifted children. That single exception is Volume II, Cox’s single-authored The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses, which instead was a retrospective study of 301 eminent creators and leaders, using historiometric methods to estimate their IQs (as well as to assess a subset of 100 on 67 character traits). This article discusses how this volume actually fits with the other four volumes in the set. After giving the historical background, discussion turns to the emergence of Cox’s doctoral dissertation. Then comes a narrative of the aftermath, including subsequent contributions by Cox, Terman, and numerous other researchers extending into the 21st century. The article closes by treating the ways that the intellectually gifted and the historic geniuses are not comparable, thus indicating the need for more recent replications and extensions of her work. Keywords archival, biographical, historical analysis, early childhood, gifted, intelligence Strictly speaking, Lewis M. Terman’s (1925-1959) monu- complete list of impressive big names provided on multiple mental and highly influential Genetic Studies of Genius con- occasions throughout the volume.
    [Show full text]
  • Francis Galton
    Journal ofMedical Ethics 1998;24:99-105 J Med Ethics: first published as 10.1136/jme.24.2.99 on 1 April 1998. Downloaded from Francis Galton: and eugenics today David J Galton, and Clare J Galton St Bartholomew's Hospital, London and Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Abstract Laws proposes many social measures to improve Eugenics can be defined as the use ofscience applied the quality of future generations.' to the qualitative and quantitative improvement of Galton strongly believed, following on from the human genome. The subject was initiated by Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selec- Francis Galton with considerable support from tion, that "we should attempt to exert control over Charles Darwin in the latter half of the 19th century. organic evolution in the same way as we exert Its scope has increased enormously since the recent control over the physical world and to direct it into revolution in molecular genetics. Geneticfiles can be channels of our own choosing".4 This would pro- easily obtainedfor individuals either antenatally or at vide practical applications for Darwin's theories birth; somatic gene therapy has been introducedfor and replace his idea of natural selection by a type some rare inborn errors of metabolism; and gene of artificial selection. The publication of Darwin's manipulation ofhuman germ-line cells will no doubt Origin ofSpecies in 1859 and the elaboration ofhis occur in the nearfuture to generate organs for theory of evolution by natural selection provoked transplantation. both bitter theological controversies with the The past history ofeugenics has been appalling, creationist proponents of the animal world as well with gross abuses in the USA between 1931 and as spirited debates on its application to social copyright.
    [Show full text]
  • Heredity and Hereditarianism
    Philosophy of Education An Encyclopedia Editor J.J. Chambliss Garland Publishing, Inc. New York & London 1996 HEREDITY AND HEREDITARIANISM Barry Mehler Department of Humanities Ferris State University Big Rapids, MI 49307 2500 words. Heredity is usually defined as the genetic transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring. This, however, is an oversimplification. The child does not inherit characteristics or traits from its parents. Children do not inherit musical ability, criminal tendencies, or IQ. Neither do they inherit physical characteristics such as skin or hair color. The child inherits one set of allele's from each parent. Together they form the child's genotype. The child also inherits mitochondria which are outside the nucleus of the cell. Genes code for the production of proteins which in turn interact with the environment to produce a phenotype. What we refer to as traits or characteristics are the phenotypes. The human being in all his or her complexity is the result of this interaction of a unique genotype with a unique environment. The modern study of heredity began with the rediscovery in 1900 of the work of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) by Hugo De Vries, Karl Correns, and Erich Tschermak. Mendel discovered the basic laws of segregation and independent assortment of paired alleles which opened the way for the modern science of genetics. The American geneticist, Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) carried on studies of heredity in Drosophila (fruit fly) and was awarded the Nobel prize in 1933 for his discoveries relating to the laws and mechanisms of heredity. Morgan showed the existence of genes located at specific sites on chromosomes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fingerprint Sourcebook
    CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH SUPPORTING THE FOUNDATIONS OF FRICTION RIDGE EXAMINATIONS Glenn Langenburg CONTENTS 3 14.1 Introduction 27 14.5 Conclusions 3 14.2 The Nature of Scientific 27 14.6 Reviewers Inquiry 7 14.3 Scientific Research Related to 27 14.7 References Friction Ridge Examination 26 14.4 Future Directions for Research Related to Friction Ridge Examination 14–1 Scientific Research Supporting the Foundations of Friction Ridge Examinations C H A P T E R 1 4 CHAPTER 14 14.1 Introduction When some people think of research, what comes to mind are images of individuals in white lab coats, looking up intermittently to take data measurements and jot down SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH notes. This is a very limited and narrow view of research. Investigative reporters, attorneys, police detectives, engi- neers, authors, actors, and, of course, scientists, all per- SUPPORTING THE form research. The scientist, however, performs scientific research. Simply defined, research is an inquiry into any FOUNDATIONS OF FRICTION subject or phenomenon. Scientific research, then, can be defined as a scientific inquiry into a subject or RIDGE EXAMINATIONS phenomenon. What makes an inquiry “scientific”? What is science? What Glenn Langenburg is scientific method? What are the rules for a scientific in- quiry? The answers to these questions are not simple, and are the subject of an entire realm of philosophy of science. This chapter will review some of these topics, relating the issue to friction ridge skin science. The reader, however, is encouraged to read more regarding the philosophy of science to better understand the complexity of science and scientific inquiry.
    [Show full text]
  • How Famous and Respected Was Wallace? [Version 3] by Alan Leyin (Thurrock Local History Society, Grays, Essex, UK), October 2014
    How Famous and Respected was Wallace? [Version 3] By Alan Leyin (Thurrock Local History Society, Grays, Essex, UK), October 2014 Having read George Beccaloni’s posting (Wallace Memorial Fund News blog, 25.04.2014) on John van Wyhe’s assertion that it is incorrect to describe Wallace as having been ‘… among the most famous Victorian scientists during his lifetime’; and that the Victorian naturalist ‘… never approached anything like the level of fame or respect’ (van Wyhe 2013, p 172) of many of his contemporaries, I had the urge to rush to my keyboard. Not wishing to duplicate Charles Smith’s response (The Linnean, 2014), to which is referred; nor being able to match either Smith’s or van Wyhe’s command of the Wallace archive, I make a few of observations (some also made elsewhere, on earlier postings) from the point of view of a non-specialist. Being quite different concepts, there is limited value in addressing issues of ‘fame or respect’ as if they were synonymous. One can, of course, accrue respect without being famous; or, indeed, become famous for being notoriously disrespected. To unpick some of the issues… On Wednesday 26th April 1882, a host of the nation’s worthies and international dignitaries gathered at Westminster Abbey to pay their final respects to Charles Darwin. Among those invited were the pre- eminent scientists of the Victorian era; all of whom would have watched the pall-bearers – three members of which had been drawn from their own distinguished circle – carry the unpolished oak coffin from its temporary sanctum in the Chapter House to its place in front of the Communion rails of the Abbey.
    [Show full text]
  • Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims
    EUGENICS: ITS DEFINITION, SCOPE AND AIMS By FRANcrs G alton, D.C.L.; Sc.D.; F.R.S. Read before the Sociological Society at a Meeting in the School of Economics and Political Science (London University), on May 16th, 1904. Professor K arl P earson, F.R.S., in the chair. Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage. The improvement of the .inborn qualities, or stock, of some one human population, will alone be discussed here. What is meant by improvement ? What by the syllable E u in Eugenics, whose English equivalent is good? There is considerable difference between goodness in the several qualities and in that of the character as a whole. The character depends largely on the proportion between qualities whose balance may be much influenced by education. We must therefore leave morals as far as possible out of the discussion, not entangling ourselves with the almost hopeless difficulties they raise as to whether a character as a whole is good or bad. Moreover, the good­ ness or badness of character is not absolute, but relative to the cur­ rent form of civilisation. A fable will best explain what is meant. Let the scene be the Zoological Gardens in the quiet hours of the night, and suppose that, as in old fables, the animals are able to converse, and that some very wise creature who had easy access to all the cages, say a philosophic sparrow or rat, was engaged in collecting the opinions of all sorts of animals with a view of elaborating a system of absolute morality.
    [Show full text]
  • Toward a Behavioral Definition of Genius
    Toward a Behavioral Definition of Genius ROBERT S. ALBERT Pitzer College 1 The idols imposed by words on the understanding are of two kinds. They are either names of things which do not exist (for as there are things left unnamed through lack of observa- tion, so likewise are there names which result from fantastic suppositions and to which nothing in reality corresponds), or they are names of things which exist, but yet confused and ill-defined, and hastily and irregularly derived from realities. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1939 This article discusses some of the troublesome places the creative person within an implicit my- issues involved in the concept of genius. An opera- thology, attributing his creative (inspired) mo- tional definition of genius is proposed; some of the ments to the intervention or the guidance of gods. implications for research on high achievement are Viewed this way, the major source of an individual's presented; and supporting evidence is offered to creative behavior lies less within him and more out- indicate that it is possible to operationalize such side him in the realm of the supernatural or pre- an apparently global concept if one restricts its ternatural. use to the behavioral, rather than to the sometimes The second early Western view ascribes mad- superficially dramatic, components of high achieve- ness to extraordinary creativity, which resembles ment. Because genius is typified by behavior that what we now speak of as severe psychopathology.2 is exceptional, often unpredictable, and influential For Aristotle "there is no great genius without to many, it is not surprising to find genius a topic madness." Coupled with "madness" was "posses- of concern for many eminent psychologists and sion," for example, Plato's view of poetic inspira- social philosophers, for example, Freud, Gallon, tion as a madness "taking hold of a delicate and William James, Kretschmer, and Terman (Annin, virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens Boring, & Watson, 1968).
    [Show full text]
  • Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era Thomas C
    “More Merciful and Not Less Effective”: Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era Thomas C. Leonard Oliver Wendell Holmes was made a Progressive lion upon his pithy dis- sent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn a New York statute restricting (male) bakers’ working hours. “The 14th Amend- ment,” said Holmes famously, “does not enact the Social Statics of Mr. Herbert Spencer.”1 Twenty-two years later, in another well-known case, Holmes wrote for the majority, which upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia law proposing involuntary sterilization of persons believed to be mentally retarded—the “feebleminded,” in the jargon of the day. “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes,” Holmes wrote in Buck v. Bell (1927). “Three generations of imbeciles,” Holmes volunteered, “is enough.” How does an opponent of Spencerian Social Darwinism come to en- dorse coercive sterilization of the unfit? This essay argues that, as a mat- ter of history, there is no contradiction in the views that underwrite the Correspondence may be address to Thomas C. Leonard, Department of Economics, Fisher Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; e-mail: [email protected]. I acknowl- edge with gratitude the constructive criticisms of Malcolm Rutherford, Deirdre McCloskey, David Levy, Sandy Peart, Bob Goldfarb, and seminar participants at the annual meetings of the Eastern Economic Association, and of the History of Economics Society. 1. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76 (1905) (USSC). As popular as his Lochner dissent was with Progressives, Wendell Holmes was no Progressive.
    [Show full text]
  • Are Crowds Wise Or Ignorant
    ARE CROWDS WISE WHEN PREDICTING AGAINST POINT SPREADS? IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU ASK JOSEPH P. SIMMONS LEIF D. NELSON JEFF GALAK SHANE FREDERICK Working Paper April 2009 Abstract Point spread betting markets are considered an important example of crowd wisdom, because point spreads are accurate and are believed to reflect the ―crowd’s‖ predictions of sporting events. However, a season-long experiment found that a crowd of football bettors was systematically biased and performed poorly when predicting which team would win against a point spread. Moreover, the crowd’s biases worsened over time. However, when the crowd was instead asked to predict game outcomes by estimating point differentials, its predictions were unbiased and wiser. Thus, the same ―crowd‖ of bettors can emerge wise or unwise, depending on how predictions are elicited. 1 The wisdom-of-crowds hypothesis predicts that the independent judgments of a crowd of individuals (as measured by any form of central tendency) will be relatively accurate, even when most of the individuals in the crowd are ignorant and error-prone (James Surowiecki 2004). Examples abound (Surowiecki 2004; Ilan Yaniv 2004; Cass R. Sunstein 2006). Irving Lorge et al. (1958) found that students’ average estimate of the temperature of a classroom was only 0.4 degrees from accuracy, a result that was better than 80% of the individuals’ judgments. Jack L. Treynor (1987) asked 56 students to estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar. The average guess was 871, very close to the true number of 850, and better than 98% of the students’ individual guesses.
    [Show full text]