In 1906, Sir Francis Galton observed a crowd at a country fair in Plymouth attempting to guess the weight of an ox. Nearly 800 people participated – from butchers and farmers to busy fishwives. Galton, ever the measurer of men and beasts, gathered the guesses and calculated their average. The result was startling: the crowd’s collective estimate came within one pound of the actual weight.
This elegantly simple experiment is the founding parable of what we term the ‘wisdom of crowds’ – the idea that while individuals may be flawed, the collective judgment of a sufficiently diverse group is compellingly accurate. Galton’s experiment also became one of the great justifications for democracy. Within 20 years of Galton’s ox being weighed and barbecued, much of the West had universal suffrage.
But that Devonian rural fair was over a hundred years ago.
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