07.28.07 "SWARM" THEORY

I find much hope in learning that collective intelligence can guide a leaderless group successfully.

Bits and pieces from an article by Peter Miller in the July 2007 National Geographic:

"With as many as 50,000 workers in a single hive, honeybees have evolved ways to work through individual differences of opinion to do what’s best for the colony...The bees' rules for decision-making — seek a diversity of options, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices..."
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"'I've applied what I've learned from the bees to run faculty meetings, ' (says Thomas Seeley of Cornell University) to avoid going into a meeting with his mind made up, hearing only what he wants to hear, and presssuring people to conform, Seeley asks his group to identify all the possibilities, kick their ideas around for a while, then vote by secret ballot. 'It's exactly what the swarm bees do, which gives a group time to let the best ideas emerge and win.'"
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"In fact, almost any group that follows the bees' rules will make itself smarter, says James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds...'the bees are predicting which nest site will be best, and humans can do the same thing, even in the face of exceptionally complex decisions.' Investors in the stock market, scientists on a research project even kids at a county fair guessing the number of beans in a jar can be smart groups, he says, if their members are diverse, independent minded, and use a mechanism such as voting, auctioning, or averaging to reach a collective decision."
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"'No single person knows everything that's needed to deal with problems we face as a society, such as health care or climate change, but collectively we know far more than we've been able to tap so far.' (Thomas Malone, MIT Center of Collective Intelligence.)"
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"...an important truth about collective intelligence: Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions. A group won't be smart if its members imitate one another, slavishly follow fads, or wait for someone to tell them what to do. When a group is being intelligent...it relies on its members to do their own part."

The hope in this article is profound. Humans in groups have the CAPACITY to act intelligently in groups (although we often don't exercise it). The key is to create and encourage social structures which facilitate the growth of positive decision-making processes as well as educational systems which emphasize indivdual thinking and a respect for diversity.

My lessons?

Do the "right" thing as YOU know it.

Resist advertising and other modes of media group manipulation.

Resist blind obedience.

Encourage acquisition of knowledge.

Encourage independent thinking.

Facilitate communication.