29th January 2026
The wisdom of crowd is a beautiful concept.
It means that a group of people is smarter than any individual.
Everyone has different knowledge and experiences. When you combine all opinions, you make great decisions.
That’s called the wisdom of crowd.
little over 115 years ago, Francis Galton traveled to a county fair in rural Britain. He went to observe a particular contest in which people were asked to guess the weight of a live cow once it had been dressed and butchered in order to win a prize.
That day, nearly 800 entered, but nobody won. At first, this seemed to confirm Galton’s view that “common people” were not that bright. If none of them could answer this question correctly, how could they be expected to make wise decisions that were much more consequential, like who should lead a country.
But when Galton took all the guesses and averaged them, he found something shocking: The median of their guesses was correct to within a few pounds.
Galton had discovered empirical evidence for the Wisdom of the crowd.
In the years since, this phenomenon has been demonstrated in numerous contexts.
Crowds are not just good at guessing the weight of animals but also answering trivia questions, and even can be helpful in locating lost submarines.
One analysis of the long-running game show, ‘Who Wants to Be A Millionaire,’ and even our very own ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ which famously contains an option to poll the studio audience if a contestant was stumped, found that the answer chosen by the majority of the audience was right an astonishing 91% of the time.
Taken together, over 100 years of research suggests that there often is “wisdom in the crowd.”
So, the next time you see a contest to guess how many jelly beans or sprinkles are in a jar—if you want to win the prize—you might consider seeing if you can poll some acquaintances.
Or, maybe just make a bunch of guesses yourself and go with the average.
Either way, you should be more likely come to out on top.
Next time you need to guess something, go by the wisdom of the crowd & stay blessed forever.