HOME
SUNDAY SCHEDULE
NEWSLETTER
CALENDAR
DIRECTIONS
LEADERSHIP
PROGRAMS
OUR BELIEFS
SERMONS
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
SOCIAL ACTION
ABOUT US
CONTACT US

This morning, as a congregation, I would like us all to take the Jelly Bean test. In place of jelly beans, we will be using salted almonds . You can see that up here on the chancel is a jar of smoked almonds. They will be counted after today's test. So, as an individual write down on your Order of Service insert your best guess and put it in the basket up here or in the offering basket.

By next Sunday, we will count them all, and average out the responses. See how they compare. We will find out if any one person came close to the actual count, and we will announce the results to the congregation.

One of the more famous examples of the Jelly Bean test took place in1906. The event was the annual “West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition.” A British scientist became interested in a weight-judging competition. The challenge was to guess the weight of a slaughtered ox.

As you might imagine, it was very difficult — if not impossible — for a single individual to guess the weight of the beast. That’s the point of the competition.

It occurred to the scientist that the crowd as a whole would do far worse. There were undoubtedly farmers and butchers in the group who would give a good guess, but there would also be lots of people who simply had no idea about the weight, would be way off, and there would be many more uninformed guesses than accurate estimates, so the collective wisdom should be much worse than expert wisdom.

So the scientist studied the estimates of 800 people at the exhibition — people who were smart, dumb, old, young, and representative of all types of professions. Their collective estimate was 1,198 pounds. The actual weight of the ox: 1,197 pounds.

James Surowiecki tells this story in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds. It’s a book which explores why large groups are often smarter than isolated individuals, and how collective wisdom shapes economies and nations. (Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Doubleday, 2004).

The 19^th century writer H.L. Mencken, has said “No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” But Surowiecki suggests that there is an uncanny, unconscious collective intelligence at work among people, contrary to our common conception that a crowd is a mindless mob.

How can crowds be smart? Consider the Scorpion and the Millionaire. Surowiecki tells us:

“In May 1968, the U.S. submarine Scorpion disappeared on its way back to Newport News after a tour of duty in the North Atlantic. Although the navy knew the sub's last reported location, it had no idea what had happened to it and only the vaguest sense of how far it may have traveled after it had last made radio contact. As a result, the area where the navy began searching for the Scorpion was a circle 20 miles wide and many thousands of feet deep. You could not imagine a more hopeless task (xx).

One man– John Craven– came up with some possible scenarios, then gathered a bunch of people with different expertise– sailors, salvage men, mathematicians, submarine specialists, and asked them each to come up with their best answer– without consulting the others. The men each bet on various factors– why the sub ran aground, its speed as it headed there, the steepness of the descent– and came up with some possibilities. Craven then combined their guesses into a single scenario, which became the group's best guess, and they ended up finding the sub within 220 feet of the predicted place. This was not a spot that any particular person had selected.

What's amazing about this story which was written up in a book called Blind Man’s Bluff, is that the individuals who were making guesses really had no evidence to work with. Just theories, and one or two bits of data. Nobody knew the submarine’s speed or rate of descent, but collectively, somehow they came very, very close.

That’s the Scorpion, now for the Millionaire.

You may remember the TV show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? One interesting part of that was that a contestant could ask for help 3 ways, but just once each way. She could call the smartest person she knew for the answer; she could have 2 of the 4 multiple choices removed, or she could have the audience to give a collective answer, via keypad and computer. The expert was right 65% of the time. And the audience was right was right 91% of the time (4).

This kind of experiment has been repeated over and over: guess your weight, guess how much buckshot is in a jar, how many jelly beans. They work best when people give their individual guesses without a lot of consultation or too much information. Some information is good, but too much actually makes things worse.

There are many examples in Surowiecki’s book. From the way the SARs outbreak was traced down, to the fact that group predictions consistently fare better than small panels of experts in the areas of cooperation, coordination and forecasting.

In the various studies surveyed, there is no evidence that certain people consistently outperform the group. In other words, if you run ten different jelly-bean counting experiments, it's likely that each time 1 or 2 students will outperform the group. Bu they will not be the same students each time. Over the 10 experiments, the group's performance will almost certainly be the best possible.

If you know much about the stock market you know this same reasoning applies to mutual funds and the S&P 500 index. Every year several mutual funds beat the index; but rarely is it the same funds over a several year period. It’s actually statistically safer and cheaper to invest in the index fund than it is in any particular mutual fund.

The simplest way to get reliably good answers is just to ask the group each time (5). This turns out to be true with a whole host of things: like predicting where moon or planetary craters might be found, to forecasting elections, this year’s snowfall in New York, and so on.

But while this is very interesting, I am also reminded of what we might call the madness of mobs. For example, a couple years ago in Seattle, a policeman was trying to talk a woman down from committing suicide by jumping off a building. But a crowd had gathered around, and one or two of them began to yell: jump! Jump! And then more and more people joined in until there was a whole mob of people yelling: jump! Jump! And they drowned out the policeman trying to talk the woman down, and she jumped, she committed suicide.

What is it about groups that brings out the worst of human nature? How can someone title a book, the Wisdom of Crowds, if this is the kind of things crowds do? And what about the “herd instinct” which creates market bubbles & crashes– whether it’s the stock market or real estate or tulips?

It turns out that groups tend to move toward extremes, they can get into that herd mentality, they lose their diversity. The mob yelling jump! Jump! did so because of 1 or 2 extreme individuals, and then the group conformed to those individuals.

Market bubbles and crashes occur because we operate out of the bigger fool theory. In the 1630s, the price of tulip bulbs in Holland reached $76,000 apiece. People bought on the way up because prices were going up so fast. $20,000 in one month. Then someone said– hey! A tulip bulb isn’t worth $76,000, and the crash came quickly. (http://www.stock-market-crash.net/tulip-mania.htm).

Groups became dumb and dangerous quickly. So, what’s to stop that from happening? Strong individuals make for smarter groups. There have been experiments done where they had a group of people who were expected to more or less conform and then were told to do something stupid.

As they added other individuals to these groups who had been given secret instructions to not conform and stay their ground, suddenly the whole group became smarter, and many more people were able to stand their ground too.

This is one of the reasons why the religious freedom inherent in Unitarian Universalism is so important, because it encourages everyone else in their spiritual struggle. You only need a few people willing to stand their ground, a few people willing to walk their talk, willing to live out their principles to make a difference in the world. A few people can make a difference.

“The smartest groups then are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. Independence doesn't imply rationality or impartiality, though.

You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you're independent, you won't make the group any dumber” (41).

Well, that’s a relief.

A crowd can actually be surprisingly smart and effective — even when many members of the group are lacking intelligence or experience. Because diversity of opinion allows new types of information to be introduced, it is almost always a good idea to allow a large number of people to have a role in decision-making.

Surowiecki argues in his book that there are four conditions that characterize wise crowds, four characteristics that prevent a group from becoming a mindless mob. This “diad-ic” approach (Diversity, Independence, Aggregation, Decentralization) can help us become a church of wise guys.

First, in a wise crowd there will always be a place for diversity of opinion. Each person in the group is allowed to share their private information, even if it is just a wild, wacky and eccentric interpretation of the known facts.

In UU circles, our diversity is well known. Wherever you have 2 or 3 Unitarians, you will have 4 or 5 opinions among them. We have folks who believe that after you die, that’s it, the end. We have other folks who not only believe in life after death, they have regular conversations with the departed.

In some circles, the word “diversity” has a pejorative ring to it. It smacks of a kind of political correctness. But we try and embrace opportunities to welcome new faces, new ideas, new opinions, new approaches, new stories — and new life!

Second, a wise crowd always allows for independence, and does not force people to conform to the mentality of the mob.

We don’t have bishops, we don’t have creeds, we don’t insist on tithing, we don’t use a single scripture– we allow for and promote independence, and especially inter-dependence.

Although it is sometimes difficult, we know we grow when we are challenged to listen to the voices of those who don’t really care about how things are “supposed to be done;” to seek out folks who don’t understand how things have “always been done.” Add to the mix a group of people who understand how to promote creative ideas and suddenly we’ve got something new!

Third, smart mobs develop techniques for aggregation — mechanisms for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

A year ago this month, we had neighborhood meetings in people’s homes. Those meetings led to the strategic plan for the church that the leadership is using to chart our course forward.

Twice a year we have town hall meetings, like we’re having today after the second service. At today’s town hall meeting, we’ll discuss, among other things, changing our service times for increased opportunities.

We solicit your opinion not only through neighborhood and town hall meetings, but also through Order of Service inserts, and even coffee hour chat. We move our ministry beyond the church walls, by asking newcomers, children and youth what they think the church is all about.

In a wise church crowd, people are encouraged to speak up with a range of ideas before final decisions are reached. Instead of telling people what to think, leaders can be soliciting new ideas.

Finally, wise crowds allow for decentralization. This means that people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge, instead of mindlessly doing the same things, over and over, in the very same ways that they have always been done.

The United Methodist denomination is not decentralized, they are centralized. I am sure Methodists are good people, but I could never become a Methodist because of their top down, centralized approach to religion. This last week their Judicial council upheld the defrocking of one of their woman ministers just because she was a lesbian in a committed relationship.

They also upheld another Methodist minister’s decision to not allow a gay man to join his church. I have to wonder how these decisions square up with the Methodist slogan: Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors. But this is what happens with top-down, centralized church structures.

Diversity, Independence, Aggregation, Decentralization, these four qualities make for a healthy liberal church.

These 4 qualities– when they are working together, can create something else, something bigger than their parts. We can gain a sort of collective consciousness that feeds us spiritually.

There have been many times for me in this church– and I know I am not alone– where it has been the music or the preacher or the sound of the readers voice where something comes together that is much larger than the individual parts.

There can be times in our Sunday service where it feels like we are coming to something really big, something really real, and we are all on the same page, nearly having the same experience, we’re just about to say: Aha! And we are on the edge of “an experience of the holy.”

There can come a moment, when we are all here together, and we recognize something of the Great Mystery is present in us and among us. It is a sacred moment. And not only do we feel it as an individual, but we get the sense that everybody else in the room is also feeling it– aware of a Presence.

Let us celebrate Diversity, Independence, Aggregation, and Decentralization. Let us celebrate National Kindness Week by doing something nice for someone. Let us offer some appreciation to a veteran in honor of Veteran’s Day. Let us appreciate democracy by voting on Tuesday.

Your homework this week is to stay independent, stay diverse, stay strong. And– even if it feels uncomfortable– resist conforming when you know the group is wrong.

We Bring Many Names to the altar of our concern. Let us rise & sing, shall we? Bring Many Names, #23.