The Zig Zag

Galton's Ox

Chris Betram at Crooked timber are again asking the old question whether voters are competent to decide the question of the presidency. H e basically argues that the provided voters are right by a 50 + epsilon % of the time then voting will deliver the correct solution, even for relatively small populations (less than a million). Of course the converse applies if on 50 – epsilon % get it right then we get the wrong result almost for sure.
This is just a the theortical underpinning of the example of Galton’s Ox, as told by James Surowiecki:-
“When eight hundred people submitted guesses as to the weight of an ox on exhibit, Galton ran them through a series of statistical tests. He assumed that the average guess of the group wouldn't even be close. ("After all, mix a few very smart people with some mediocre people and a lot of dumb people, and it seems likely you'd end up with a dumb answer.") But the crowd's judgment was unexpectedly accurate. The ox weighed 1,198 pounds, and the crowd's guess averaged at 1,197 pounds.”
But the real moral of the story is not that the crowd got it right but rather the surprise it gave Galton – who was in part obsessed by the idiocy of the general population. So the real question is not whether we can expect voters to get it right, but rather, why after 100 years after the theory was formulated, do intelligent academics still think that they’re smarter than a ship of fools?