" But it does indicate the importance of recruiting active leaders to a cause ..."
Neil, whatever happened to your pathological aversion to " leaders " and leadership ? On Feb 16, 1:57 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > Democracies work better. It has long been held that decisions made > collectively by large groups of people are more likely to turn out to > be accurate than decisions made by individuals. The idea goes back to > the “jury theorem” of Nicolas de Condorcet, an 18th-century French > philosopher who was one of the first to apply mathematics to the > social sciences. Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are > also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as > ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or > two to teach people about collective decision-making. > Animals that live in groups make two main sorts of choices: consensus > decisions in which the group makes a single collective choice, as when > house-hunting rock ants decide where to settle; and combined > decisions, such as the allocation of jobs among worker bees. > > Condorcet’s theory describes consensus decisions, outlining how > democratic decisions tend to outperform dictatorial ones. If each > member of a jury has only partial information, the majority decision > is more likely to be correct than a decision arrived at by an > individual juror. Moreover, the probability of a correct decision > increases with the size of the jury. But things become more > complicated when information is shared before a vote is taken. People > then have to evaluate the information before making a collective > decision. This is what bees do, and they do it rather well, according > to Christian List of the London School of Economics, who has studied > group decision-making in humans and animals along with Larissa Conradt > of the University of Sussex. > Dr List looked at colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera), which in > late spring or early summer divide once the swarm reach a certain > size. The queen goes off with about two-thirds of the worker bees to > live in a new home leaving a daughter queen in the nest with the > remaining worker bees. Among the bees that depart are scouts that > search for the new nest site and report back using a waggle dance to > advertise suitable locations. The longer the dance, the better the > site. After a while, other scouts start to visit the sites advertised > by their compatriots and, on their return, also perform more waggle > dances. The process eventually leads to a consensus on the best site > and the swarm migrates. The decision is remarkably reliable, with the > bees choosing the best site even when there are only small differences > between two alternatives. By tinkering around with a computer > simulation they found that computerised bees that were very good at > finding nesting sites but did not share their information dramatically > slowed down the migration, leaving the swarm homeless and vulnerable. > Conversely, computerised bees that blindly followed the waggle dances > of others without first checking whether the site was, in fact, as > advertised, led to a swift but mistaken decision. The researchers > concluded that the ability of bees to identify quickly the best site > depends on the interplay of bees’ interdependence in communicating the > whereabouts of the best site and their independence in confirming this > information. > > Simon Hix, also of the London School of Economics, and his colleagues > examined voting in the EU Parliament and concluded that, as might be > expected, it was along party-political lines even though the > incentives to do so were far less than at national parliaments. Dr Hix > and his colleagues reckon that European parliamentarians share the > collection of information but, unlike the honeybees, they do not > necessarily progress to investigating the issues for themselves before > taking a vote. > > There is danger in blindly following the party line, a danger that the > honeybees seem to avoid. Condorcet’s theory fails to consider whether > there is an inbuilt bias among a group that comes together to consider > a problem. This “groupthink” occurs when people copy one another. > According to Dr List: “The swarm manages to block and prevent the kind > of groupthink that can bedevil good decision making.” Dr List adds > that people demonstrate this kind of bad decision-making when > investors pile into a stock and others follow, creating a bubble for > which there is no good reason. > > Another form of groupthink occurs when people are either isolated from > crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the > group, some of whom may have malevolent intent. This too has now been > demonstrated in animals. José Halloy of the Free University of > Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living > cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his > experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial > bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently > socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By > manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to > persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one > which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines. Could > this form the basis of a new way of catching them? > > The way animals make collective decisions can be complex. Nigel Franks > of the University of Bristol, in England, and his colleagues studied > how a species of ants called Temnothorax albipennis establish a new > nest. In the Royal Society journal they report how the insects > mitigate the disadvantages of making a swift choice. If the ants’ > existing nest becomes threatened, the insects send out scouts to seek > a new one. How quickly they accomplish this transfer depends not only > on how soon the ants agree on the best available site but also on how > quickly they can migrate there. When a suitable place is identified, > the scouts begin to lead other scouts, which had remained behind to > guard the old nest, to the new site. The problem is that if the > decision is reached rapidly, as it might have to be in an emergency, > then relatively few scouts know the route. It would then take much > longer to train all the scouts needed to achieve the transfer, which > involves carrying the queen, the workers and the brood to the new > nest. > > Dr Franks and his colleagues identified a type of behaviour called > “reverse tandem runs” that makes the process more efficient. During > the carrying phase of migration, the scouts lead other scouts back > along the quickest route to the old nest so that more scouts become > familiar with the route. Thus the dynamics of collective decision- > making are closely entwined with the implementation of these > decisions. How this might pertain to choices that people might make > is, as yet, unclear. But it does indicate the importance of recruiting > active leaders to a cause because, as the ants and bees have > discovered, the most important thing about collective decision-making > is to get others to follow. > > The above is cut down from this week's Economist. This work is recent > but much of it has been known since the beginning of my career. I > wonder what it is in human decision making that screws us up? The > idea of robots being intentionally used to feed us mis-information > seems rather likely! Indeed, we seem to be governed by them. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
