The scientists determined: 42.7 billion tons of salt in the Dead Sea; The public: 42.8 billion tons of salt in the Dead Sea
Hundreds of participants accepted the challenge of the Ministry of Science and tried to guess - how much salt is in the Dead Sea - as part of the first and largest exercise of its kind held in Israel in the wisdom of the masses. The results were revealed today by the Minister of Science, Technology and Space Yaakov Perry as part of the Night of Scientists events. Weighing the results it turned out that the Israeli public was very close to the scientific answer and the median of the answers given is 42.8 billion tons of salt, while the answer based on the scientists' calculations is 42.7 billion tons.
"The great exercise in the wisdom of the masses in Israel was a great success. The website of the Ministry of Science recorded tens of thousands of entries from surfers who wanted to be interested in a very Israeli question - how much salt is in the Dead Sea? A place where most of us have bathed at least once but until now we have not been asked this interesting question. The success of the exercise is that it aroused the public's curiosity and caused mass active participation in dealing with a scientific question." Minister of Science, Technology and Space Yaakov Perry said upon revealing the results as part of the Scientists' Night events at the Technion in Haifa. "The tens of thousands of people who crowd the Night of Scientists events across the country every year show that the Israeli public is thirsty for knowledge and interested in science, but also that the men and women scientists are happy to share their knowledge and open their laboratory doors."
Remember, the idea of the wisdom of the crowd claims that under certain conditions the combined wisdom of the crowd can be no less accurate than the wisdom of the individual expert. The phenomenon was discovered about 100 years ago in a village in England in an experiment where people were shown a bull and asked what its weight was. In the experiment it was found that the median of the participants' answers is exactly the weight of the bull. Since then, the Israeli Lior Zorf recreated this experiment in a live performance on the global TED lecture stage and proved that the idea works even in the XNUMXs.
Since the challenge was published last week, the Ministry of Science website has recorded 23 hits from surfers. After about a week in which the votes flowed in on the site, the answers were weighed and after a calculation process based on the wisdom of the masses, a final result almost identical to that of the scientists emerged.
"Some of the participants tried to calculate the result based on the clues that appeared on the website and about 10% managed to arrive at the answer 42.7 billion tons" explains Lior Zoraf. "The rest of the participants gave answers ranging between billions of tons and 0.0004 billion tons according to an estimate based on the wisdom of the masses."
Scientists from the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center and the Geological Institute were required for the task and made calculations based on data measured in studies. According to the data, the weight of a liter of water in the Dead Sea is 1.24 kg - this compared to 1.03 kg of normal sea water. At the current level, the volume of the Dead Sea is 122 cubic kilometers, or in other words - 122 billion cubic meters. As published on the website, the concentration of the salts is 350 grams per liter and therefore, after translating the numbers to the same order of magnitude, the result is a volume multiplied by the concentration of the salts. According to this calculation, the weight of all the salts dissolved in water is about 42.7 billion tons. However, the scientists point out that it must be taken into account that the change in temperature creates a change in the density of the salt. Additional factors that must be taken into account are the amount of salt that has accumulated on the bottom of the water - which accumulates about 10 cm every year, but also that salts continue to be added to the sea as a result of the weathering of rocks. However, the scientists point out, this amount is minimal compared to the amount of salts dissolved in water.
Some of the interested people who entered the website took the challenge one step further - thus, several participants said that they decided to conduct experiments to give a more accurate assessment. One of the participants took a liter of water, added salt to it and observed how much the weight increased. Math teachers challenged their students in class and let them solve the challenge according to the hints given on the office's website.
According to Zoraf, "experiments of this type bring the scientific community closer to the field of crowd wisdom and the citizens to the field of science."
25 תגובות
100000 tons
MouthHole
We may be saying the same thing. People can be divided into two groups - those who have a good estimate, because they are experienced in the field, and those who guess. The first group will give a result with high significance (small dispersion around the correct result) and the second group will give an output with a large dispersion. If a bifurcation graph, we will see a maximum in the area of the correct answer.
This explains the success in certain cases. For example, I think this also explains the result of the amount of salt in the Dead Sea.
It seems to me much more effective to simply ask one expert... Maybe we will give every passenger on the plane a joystick and it will be possible to spare the pilot?
Miracles,
I do not think that the wisdom of the masses is deprived of every possible element. I do believe that the average of people's intuitions managed to find the weight of the bull..
I explain it to myself by saying that we (humans) need to estimate an amount of items in a reasonable way even if they are over 5 even before we knew how to count (or to save time), therefore the average of our estimates will be very similar to the result.
Apparently I'm wrong, but that's my intuition at least :/
MouthHole
Benford's law also seems very mystical at first, and unrealistic. The wisdom of crowds also seems mystical - but apparently it really isn't realistic...
Sometimes I have strange associations….
Miracles, interesting! But I don't understand the context of the subject?
MouthHole
It doesn't matter the units... Now I remembered - it's called Benford's law.
No 🙂 Is it according to European or American units of measure?
MouthHole
You may be familiar with the theory that in any data set (like river lengths, country areas) about a third of the numbers will start with the digit 1?
Nissim, Yaffe dismissed the examples.. apparently the wisdom of the crowd works in very certain cases..
Apparently on the weight of a bull people will see, the average of their guesses will work.
But what will happen if people don't see the bull? Will they guess correctly even then? Apparently not. And what if I show them a big, hollow plastic painted like a rock? Apparently even then the majority will be wrong...
And if you ask most Japanese if there is a God, you will receive that there is not. In the US you will get that there is... something strange
If you ask people about a complicated mathematical question, apparently even then most of them will be wrong...
In short, very specific cases such as how many dice are in the box (assuming the dice are the same size and the box is built normally and without face card bumps...)
Dr. Hagi Folkman
Like Jacob Shaked, there also seems to be a problem here. Especially after I looked at the link you referred to:
Google uses the idea that pages that have the most references are the most interesting. It's quite a tautology…
Wikipedia actually uses the wisdom of experts and not the wisdom of the crowd. There is no "voting", but the experts are allowed to edit according to their understanding. Those who do not understand - do not edit.
Wiz uses the average speed in each segment to calculate a route. If you replace all the drivers with driverless vehicles - you will not get any less good results.
In the 3 cases you mentioned, intuition is not used.
And remind you - most people think there is a God.
The wisdom of crowds works when certain conditions are met.
Comparing the wisdom of the masses and the experts is important to examine under the conditions
http://co-play.co.il/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%9E%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D/
First of all, I think that the initiators of this referendum deserve equal power. Bringing people closer to knowledge and sciences, and the development of curiosity and thinking, are important in general, and for the State of Israel more than for other countries.
As a matter of fact, I think the "wisdom of the crowd" is real bullshit.
I also think that the "wonderful results" of this poll are eye catching. Her intention is indeed good, but that does not change her nature. No "crowd" participated in this referendum. The participants were divided into two types: one, which is the main mass - highly educated people, it is very likely that almost all of them have an academic education. Some of them may even be close to the subject. It's definitely not a "crowd" and his guess was educated. Very very learned. The second type was some foolish fools who came to the matter by mistake and their hearts were full to "submit" their guess, probably with the assurance that the correct answer would be drawn from a lottery drum and they might win a prize.
There is, therefore, no "crowd wisdom" here. The "wisdom of the crowd" is nothing more than a foolish wishful thinking of people who belong to the type who look for easy magic solutions for everything and anything. There are no magic solutions in this kind of matter. It's like "weighing" the solutions of a million monkeys who will randomly press number keys. nonsense!
This matter of the "wisdom of the crowd" is also known as "the voice of the crowd as the voice of demons" (Vox populi, vox Dei). It is amazing that there are still those who believe that the voice of the crowd expresses what is right, the truth. Almost all of our experience throughout history proves the opposite, yet there are those who yearn for the false swamp light of this "wisdom of the crowd". There is almost no evidence to be found in human history - which is full of blood and ignorance - that would justify this. This is doubly true, especially in the fields of science. Democracy has no place in science. The majority opinion does not determine the mathematical calculations that led to E=mc2. The "wisdom of the crowd" nonsense has no say in these matters. And why should weight be given to the opinion of masses who are burned out of their minds? And what weight should be given to the opinion of masses who have no clue what it is about?
To sum up the far-fetched matter of the "wisdom of the crowd", here is an ancient saying that I just made up: many times, the prevailing opinion is equal to...
Miracles,
Indeed, Switzerland, where almost every decision is made by the wisdom of the masses, is a failed and unsuccessful country.
Please name one more successful non-democratic regime where the standard of living of the residents is higher?
By the way, your criticism of the experiment is really petty. The experiment was done as a one-time gimmick for Scientists' Day with the aim of bringing the population closer to science and an amazing result was obtained that deviates by 0.1 from the true result. So what do Mr. Nissim Sabradmish and similar Potzes come and say?
"No, the experiment was only done once." Yes, as if more were possible. Besides, since when is a survey of tens of thousands of people not statistically significant? After all, definitive election polls are done on 500 people.
"No, everyone knew." Yes, really, I wonder if you great scholars would be able to give such a precise answer.
In short, it's a little wisdom to sit on the fence like some movie critics who do nothing and only criticize what others do.
Look
(Direct) democracy is an example of crowd wisdom, and both are not successful in my opinion. In a practical government, mechanisms like a constitution are needed to protect the minority. None of you want to be responsible for distributing the state budget.
Miracles
Your math is weird..you're not the only one.
If 15% of the countries are democracies and there are thousands of wars, the chance that there will be a war between democracies is statistically huge.
The chance that there won't be a single war between democracies in these data is even smaller than the chance that two coins in different rooms will fall a thousand times on the same side.
Apparently the democracies contain hidden variables, or maybe the wave function of the wisdom of the masses is the cause?
Want democracy? Scotland is a democracy!
Want a physicist? Maxwell a physicist!
And Scotty too..
foul
What about turmeric? Of all your medicines, the only one I adopted was the desert.
Nissim, you talk about direct democracy and define it as democracy.
Israel, you are talking about representative democracy.
Contact me for more details.
Israel? How exciting? Is it true that turmeric helps?
Israel
About 15% of the countries in the world are democracies according to your definition. The chance of a war between them is low 🙂
I have no argument that democracy is better than the other alternatives in the world. But, there are a lot of problems with this, a lot of time resources for the maintenance of democracy, a low chance of an excellent government and a high chance of a mediocre government.
And anyway, you're talking about a republic. Real democracy is not something you would want to live in.
Ok, definition of democracy:
Every period of time defined by law (4 years in Israel) free and secret elections are held for all adult citizens, where each competing party is allowed to present its position freely before the elections. Media freedom, separation of powers and respect for the law.
That is why the USA is a democracy.
In the last 200 years there have been thousands of wars in the world, but not between democracies.
There are and have been many democracies in the world, but they do not fight among themselves.
This is also a type of crowd wisdom.
Israel
During these 200 years (why exactly 200?) - how many of the countries in the world are democracies? How do you define a democratic country? Is India democratic in your eyes? Singapore? How long does a democratic country survive compared to a non-democratic country?
I just want to remind you that the USA is not a democracy, it is a republic -
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands,
Maybe there was democracy in the kibbutzim...
And what does all this have to do with me saying that I don't think the wisdom of crowds is a general method for solving problems? Maybe we will vote on the correctness of evolution? :).
What I'm saying is that this trick works by combining two conditions: there is a large dispersion of the guesses, and there is a significant number who know the answer. This is just my feeling, I haven't researched the issue.
Miracles
How many wars have there been in the world in the last 200 years?
And how much between two democratic countries?
What does it matter
If they did the experiment several times and each time they got a similar result, then maybe the result is amazing (I explained why I think it's not necessarily amazing).
If they did one experiment... Maybe it's a coincidence? Maybe they did a lot of experiments and published only this?
Churchill once said that a 5 minute conversation with an average person shows you how bad democracy is. See the governments of Israel... Do you rely on these pointers to calculate how much salt is in the sea?? 🙂
Say what you will, still an amazing result
I completely agree with Eran's response and I would like to add how in my opinion the experiment should have been conducted. Suppose we were to show a satellite photo of the Dead Sea and its surroundings. And add in the photo a line showing ten kilometers and add the depth of the sea by about ten points and also add the figure that there are 350 grams of salt in every liter of water. Now the question of how much salt is in the Dead Sea will require not just an arithmetic operation of multiplication, but an estimate of the surface of the Dead Sea, how much it inflated and hence the amount of salt. Then we could see if the wisdom of crowds really exists. That's my opinion.
Please respond gently
Good night
Yehuda
I agree with Eran. If some of the respondents know the answer, and there is a wide spread in the other answers, then there will probably be a prominent maximum in the area of the correct answer.
There are so many problems with this experiment that I don't know where to start:
- The definition of "expert" depends on the definer. Are 30 students who know what salt salinity is and perform a series of experiments in this case not "experts"? What far superior tools do the "experts" use?
- The experiment didn't really take a lot, but people who were interested in the subject, probably had previous knowledge, so in the best case it is an educated crowd.
- The office gave hints or in other words information = tools that are used by real experts.
- It is possible that both the experts and the crowd were wrong, since all the estimates are based on controversial hypotheses.
As a gimmick it's a nice thing, but surely nothing can be concluded from the experiment about the nature of the "wisdom of crowds".