> when country fairs hold competitions to see who can guess > the weight of a cow, the guesses tend to cluster around the > correct answer Do they really? I'

> when country fairs hold competitions to see who can guess > the weight of a cow, the guesses tend to cluster around the > correct answer Do they really? I've seen this a bunch of times, but never seen a citation ... and even if it's true, it strikes me that guesses at the weight of a cow at a country fair are likely to be expert guesses. I wonder how well a New York crowd would do at the same thing? Another thing that strikes me about the wisdom of crowds are the most convincing examples are ones where the guessers are basically guessing-what-other-people-will-guess. That's the essence of markets