The wisdom of the crowd and the developmental argument

It seems the latter supposes that the more developed one is based on cognitive complexity tests, the better they can understand and address problems. It would also seem that an elite group of such advanced cogitators banding together would be even better at such tasks, thereby instituting more beneficial social reforms than say the lower cognitive level working class who are not as educated or developed. Hence we have a plethora of liminal webbers banding together to engineer society for the better. It also seems to be the argument of having a more educated and successful professional class as leaders in our governments.

 

Then we have the notion of the wisdom of the crowd. Here is a conclusion from a large-scale study of the phenomenon:

 

"When we aggregate to the level of domains, the crowd quite consistently outperforms individuals, often by a large margin. This difference between question-level and domain-level performance appears to stem from the fact that even 'expert' respondents do not always perform well. The consistency of the crowd leads to cumulative advantages when performance is measured on an extended battery of questions."

 

Surowiecki's seminal book on the topic notes:

 

"Crowd diversity is very important. Studies show that a random group of non-experts is more effective than a group of experts when it comes to problem solving. Similar knowledge and experience of experts undermine the effectiveness of diversity. Meanwhile, the different combined knowledge and experiences of the members of a diverse team will be wiser and smarter than even the best experts. Another important point is that the diversity of the group will lead to the independence of opinions from the group members."

 

Granted even a crowd can be contaminated and get things wrong. An obvious example is the Trumpler insurrectionists who staged a coup that culminated at the Capitol. And it's still ongoing throughout our country in the various States controlled by this fascist ideology. So it seems the countervailing condition for crowd efficacy is 'diversity' and not conformity within a subgroup.

 

It's something to ponder in our progressive community, which seems to promote the first option of elite leadership instead of the latter wisdom of the diverse crowd. What say you, you diverse group of elitists?

Also see this relevant post.