A Book for My Reading List

Just the review has me interested.

The Wisdom of Crowds: A Review

Science fiction/Fantasy writer Piers Anthony wrote a series of books call the Incarnations of Immortality, of which the lead book was called On a Pale Horse about a man names Zane, who becomes the incarnation of Death (who rides a pale hourse). About midway through the book, Nature (another incarnation) and Zane carry on a coversation, a lecture really, about the nature of thinking. During the lecture, Nature tells him of sequential thinking, diagrammed like this -----, thinking in parallel --==-, and intuitive thinking --|||--. The discussion becomes important in the novel's climax as Zane tries to overcome the crux of the novel.

In many ways, Juames Surowiecki's book, the Wisdom of Crowds, reminds me of the parallel thinking segment, where working on different parts of a problem can often lead to a solution much faster. Surowiecki's premise, that experts are no more likely and indeed less likely, to arrive at a correct answer than a group of free thinking, but informed individuals. Looking at situations as diverse as picking a President to playing on Who Wants to be a Millionaire to the manner in which we navigate crowed sidewalks, Surowiecki looks at instances where the wisdom of the grouop is much more effective and efficient than a single expert.

In order for a crowd to work effectively, Surowiecki asserts that it needs four specific criteria--and no crowd size is not one of them--Independence from the other members, diversity of opinion (groupthink leads to bad decisions), decentralized thinking and operation and a effective method for aggregating the opinions. throughout the book, while explaining these requisites, Surowiecki discusses, using real life examples, of how the absence of these traits leads to poor decision making processes and outcomes.

The application of Surowiecki's theory is practially limitless, but in the current political context, the application can be useful. There is an old saw that says if you are dumb, surround yourself with smart people and if you are smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you. The current political debate surely could benefit from a few more dissenting opinions, both for the Administration and for Congress. By having more dissenting views in a room when decisions are made can lead to better policy and better governing. Of course, in a partisan atmosphere, such independence of thought in either the White House or the offices of Congress simply is not tolerated and the American people suffer.

Despite our belief in the wisdom of experts, and we have many of them and they often make good judgments, Surowiecki is not necessarily knocking the existence of experts because they provide important insights and information. What Surowiecki argues is that experts should only be a part of some decision making processes and that we should simply defer to them on the basis of their expertise. Although he only hints at it, Surowiecki was actually on the verge of an important point.

Not only is the wisdom of crowds useful for problem solving but also has a wonderful predictative ability. The proliferation of polls, particularly political polling, is not just about assessing the mood, but a well designed poll can give hints as to what the future holds as well. Although many political pundits may dismiss polls (and dismissing poorly designed polls is proper), a well designed poll gives a pretty good snapshot in time of what is happening and what will happen in the near future. Often times, when a crowd turns out to be wrong, it is based upon unforseen circumstances, events that could not be anticipated (9/11 for instance) or a lack of information about the decision. While perfect information is impossible though, the crowd does a pretty good job of determining what is going to happen based upon limited information.

Surowiecki's book can get bogged down in details of a given situation, perhaps its most glaring weakness. At other times, Surowiecki, comfortable with his knowledge, fails to bring the reader along with him. Often times, the descriptions of psychological and economic experiments fail to properly illustrate his point or leave the reader wondering what is happeing.

Many of the situations and institutions discussed in the book lie at the heart of American society. The foundations of our society, that of a representative democracy, capitalism and the open market, public opinions and mores, and other examples of community and collective action, are based on the wisdom of crowds. Indeed, the fundamental precept of our government is the belief in the wisdom of ordinary people to govern themselves. But the true power of the wisdom of crowds is not just parallel thinking, --===--, but a combination of parallel thinking combined with intuitive thinking, that is dozens, hundredes, thousands, even millions of people coming to conclusions with incomplete information using parallel intuitive thinking. That is after all, how we behave on a regular basis, making decisions with imperfect information. A crowd simply aggregates that decision making into a collective wisdom.

Robert A. Heinlein--Anothe Tribute

This one from Taylor Dinerman:

Robert A. Heinlein, who died in 1988, lived a life inspired by two great loves. One was America and its promise of freedom. As one of his characters put it: "Your country has a system free enough to let heroes work at their trade. It should last a long time--unless its looseness is destroyed from the inside." And he loved and admired women--not just his wife, Virginia, who provided the model for the many strong-minded and highly competent females who populate his stories, but all of womankind. "Some people disparage the female form divine, sex is too good for them; they should have been oysters."

In another hundred years, it will be interesting to see if the nuclear-powered spaceships and other technological marvels he predicted are with us. But nothing in his legacy will be more important than the spirit of liberty he championed and his belief that "this hairless embryo with the aching oversized brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure and spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency."

As I get older, I wish I would have met Heinlein, he sounds like a guy who you could have a beer on the beach, talk politics with and watch beautiful women walk by.

Top Maryland School Official Wants to Uses Comics to Encourage Reading

To be honest, I am of two minds about this story:

Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, an Archie fan in her youth, tried out comics in third-grade classrooms in eight elementary schools across the state last year. The experiment was so well-received that she will announce today that she wants to expand the use of graphic novels and comic strips to middle schools.

We never said this program would supplant ... our regular basic reading program," Grasmick said, "but it could provide a huge motivation for some of our students."

Teachers have long seen comic books peeking out from a backpack or the corner of a desk or tucked between the pages of a textbook. Bringing them into the light, Grasmick hopes, will grab the imagination of boys and give teachers another way of enticing reluctant readers into good literature.

The state has worked with Disney Publishing Worldwide and Diamond Comic Distributors to put together kits for 200 classrooms in the state. Maryland teachers looked through dozens of comic books and picked those that were not violent and did not contain inappropriate language.

While I applaud the idea of getting creative to get kids reading, I am not sure that this is the best track to take. Most comics rely on the pictures to tell the story and the text is a partner at best and secondary at worst. But the story does point out something that may set this apart a little:

"I wouldn't want to replace books with comic books, but why is it either or?" said Susan Sonnenschein, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County who studied the use of comics in the eight schools.

For the pilot project, Disney took the state's standards for reading in third grade and created comics-based lesson plans that incorporated skills already being taught, such as how to understand plot and character.

If the comics are used to advance and augment skills that are supposed to be taught, I am probably okay with that. But if the comics are being used as a lower cost way to supplant traditional texts, then we have crossed the line.