James Surowiecki
Continuing with my obsession with reading books in the sociology/economics genre, this seemed like a natural pick. The premise behind this book is that, under certain circumstances, a large group (or crowd) can make a better decision than an “expert”. Surowiecki begins the book by giving an example of people at a small-town country fair. There is a contest to judge the weight of an ox. While no single person came within a few pounds, by averaging all of the individual guesses, the crowd’s guess was only 1 pound off from the actual weight. Surowiecki admits that a group of people aren’t always better than an expert, for example, 100 random people wouldn’t be better than a brain surgeon on determining whether to remove a tumor or not. Throughout the book, Surowiecki focuses on a few things that make for good “crowd” decisions: diverse groups, independent thinking within the group (members shouldn’t consult each other on decisions), and including all opinions. He gives good evidence to support his views, and the book was an interesting read, although it was a bit slow at times.