Wisdom of the Crowd with Henrik Schøneberg

Scientist Francis Galton (Charles Darwin’s half cousin) wanted to prove that democracy does not work. He therefore asked a group of people to guess the weight of an ox and worked out the average answer. To his surprise it turned out to be remarkably close to the actual answer and he had to re-evaluate his view of democracy. In this talk philosopher Henrik Schøneberg traces back ideas about our collective consciousness to ancient Greece and shares the thought-provoking results of modern evidence-based research into the wisdom of the crowd.

As well as reflecting on his own experiences conducting the experiment, Schøneberg examines possible explanations into the wisdom of the crowd and assesses under what conditions the crowd becomes wise and under what conditions philosophers have always been right to be skeptical of the general public and their propensity towards mob mentality. This raises timely questions about such things as the censorship of extreme views on social media, the role of expert opinion in public discourse, and what to make of Brexit and the US presidential election.

Henrik Schøneberg is a philosopher from Copenhagen, Denmark specializing in the human mind and our ability to think and act well. He has published articles in internationally acclaimed magazines, such as Wired, New Humanist and Philosophy Now. Additionally he is the founder of Thales Day, an annual event to celebrate the origin of philosophy and science with an outset in its ancient Greek roots.

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