Friday, July 20, 2007

Gumball Game Epilogue

Friday, May 18th

Epilogue

As a follow-up to the CPDEP forum gumball quiz, I took matter into my own hands to see if I could create another opportunity to test Surowiecki’s theories….in this case, the results were much different.

I am the Cub Leader at Pack 641 in Houston and we had a year-end gathering at my house for the eldest boys (called Webelos) and leaders tonight. Families were invited and we had about 45 people show up. The ages of the group ranged from about 5 years of age to senior statesman status. People were approached to estimate the number of gumballs in a glass container. This container was smaller and more cylindrical than the one at CPDEP. Of all the attendees, 37 took a shot at estimating the total….some parents were scared away from guessing when they learned that the winner took home the gumballs…(I mean, what else are we going to do with 1337 gumballs?...my wife is concerned I may be on a first named basis with our dentist in about a year’s time if they remain within this household for another week).

When I charted out the results, I saw something that was very interesting.

There were 282 gumballs in the container, the average guess was 257….there were only two people closer, one guessed 275 and another guessed 295. Clearly, this showed that there was some wisdom here. There was only a 2/37 chance that any one person’s estimate would be more correct than the average of all the estimates. Surowiecki should be proud – in this instance, his theory holds up pretty well.

What this says about a conference full of decision analysts versus a pack of cub scouts…I will not comment on.

- Jeremy