Longevity question...

[Eric_R_Kissell at whirlpool.com]

Kent McLean <kentmclean at mindspring.com> relayed to the group:
>CBS News this morning had a segment on the wisdom of crowds
>being better in some instances than the wisdom of a singular
>expert. Two examples: a crowd at a race track picking the
>favorite, and guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar
>(the crowd's average was closer than any one single guess).
>I think the same group wisdom can be found on the Audifans
>list -- collectively, we're brilliant!

Simple statistics suggest that if on average we are brilliant then the
distribution of individuals must contain some in the upper tail of the
distribution, i.e. the very-brilliant, and others in the lower tail of the
distribution, i.e. the not-so-brilliant.

The trick is to figure out where each individual offering you advice lies
within the distribution and then to follow or ignore advice accordingly.

Eric  (engineer, statistician, shade tree mechanic, philosopher...)