獨立思維才能造就集體智慧 When We're Cowed by the Crowd

獨立思維才能造就集體智慧 When We're Cowed by the Crowd 美國有賴於集體智慧。投票時﹐我們依靠大眾來選擇最傑出的政治家。 投資股市時﹐我們假定隨著時間的推移﹐人們會受最出色的公司所吸 引。甚至是我們的文化也越來越多地由集體行為所推動：看看電視節 目《美國偶像》(American Idol)就可一目瞭然。 好消息是集體智慧確實存在。當一群人被問到一個非常難的問題時﹐ 比如說﹐估計一下罐子裡的彈球數﹐或是紐約市的謀殺率﹐人們的失 誤往往會彼此抵消。結果就造成平均答案常常出人意料地準確。 不過﹐壞消息是：集體智慧是一種脆弱得難以置信的現象。一群聰明 人與一群盲從之流僅有一步之遙。更糟糕的是﹐瑞士科學家進行的一 項新研究顯示﹐現代生活的互相聯繫性可能開始使我們更難以從集體 智慧中獲益了。 試 驗很簡單。研究人員召集了 144位瑞士大學生﹐安排他們坐在彼 此隔絕的工作隔間中﹐然後讓他們回答各種問題﹐比如住在蘇黎世的 新移民有多少。在很多情況下 ﹐事實證明集體智慧是正確的。比如﹐ 當問他們蘇黎世的新移民有多少時﹐學生們估計的中值為 10,000。 正確答案是 10,067。 然後﹐ 科學家們告訴研究對象組里其他人的估計數字。這樣﹐學生 們就可以根據組里其他人的反饋調整自己隨後的估計。結果令人失望。 突然之間﹐估計的區間明顯變窄﹔ 人們在無意識地彼此模仿。最終 他們放大了自己的誤差﹐而不是彼此抵消誤差﹐正因為如此﹐每一輪 都造成估計的數字誤差更大。儘管這些研究對象更有自信認為自 己 是正確的──知道別人的想法讓他們更加安心──這種自信卻用錯 了地方。 科學家們將這種現象稱為“社會影響效應”。在報告中﹐科學家們說﹐ 近年來這種效應變得越來越普遍。畢竟﹐我們生活在一個充斥著民意 調查、Facebook、有線新聞和 Twitter的時代。我們不斷地遇到其他 人的想法﹐群體會告訴自己該怎麼想。 在一個理想的世界中﹐所有這些信息都將完善我們的想法。媒體和網 絡上的各種觀點將轉化成各種思想和集體智慧。不過﹐看起來事實並 非如此。 看 看芝加哥大學社會學家埃文斯(James Evans)最近進行的一項研 究。在研究中﹐他對過去 50年中發 表 关于同志近三年现实表现材料材料类招标技术评分表图表与交易pdf视力表打印pdf用图表说话 pdf 的 3,400萬篇學術文章進行了 分析。儘管期刊數字化令尋找這些信息變得容易多了──大 部分文 章現在都可以在網上找到──埃文斯卻發現﹐伴隨數字化而來的是引 用文章範圍的收窄。由於搜索引擎按照被引用次數排列文章﹐學者們 往往會專注於排在前 面的文章﹐造成對知名度較低的研究的忽視﹐ 即使是相關的研究。 我們生活的時代看似一切皆可得﹐但我們卻比以往任何時候更有可能 是在閱讀同樣的東西。隨大流的誘惑力是很難抗拒的。 這項研究揭示了我們彼此超級聯繫的生活的不利方面。那麼多重要的 機構有賴於公民獨立思考的能力﹐有賴於他們抗拒最新潮流或泡沫的 能力。正因為如此﹐就像我們的國父們所意識到的﹐培養言論自由、 百家爭鳴非常重要。 然而﹐儘管網絡培養了新形式的集體行為﹐它也助長了新型集體愚昧。 在我們適應信息過剩、將我們的想法“外包”給名人、學者和 Facebook好友之際﹐集體想法現在更加普遍。我們只是引用別人引 用過的東西﹐而不是獨立思考。 我們應該警惕這類影響。保護集體智慧的唯一方法是保護個人的獨立 性。 When We're Cowed by the Crowd America depends upon the wisdom of crowds. When voting, we rely on the masses to pick the best politicians. When investing in stocks, we assume that, over time, people will gravitate toward the best companies. Even our culture is increasingly driven by the collective: Just look at 'American Idol.' The good news is that the wisdom of crowds exists. When groups of people are asked a difficult question─say, to estimate the number of marbles in a jar, or the murder rate of New York City─their mistakes tend to cancel each other out. As a result, the average answer is often surprisingly accurate. But here's the bad news: The wisdom of crowds turns out to be an incredibly fragile phenomenon. It doesn't take much for the smart group to become a dumb herd. Worse, a new study by Swiss scientists suggests that the interconnectedness of modern life might be making it even harder to benefit from our collective intelligence. The experiment was straightforward. The researchers gathered 144 Swiss college students, sat them in isolated cubicles, and then asked them to answer various questions, such as the number of new immigrants living in Zurich. In many instances, the crowd proved correct. When asked about those immigrants, for instance, the median guess of the students was 10,000. The answer was 10,067. The scientists then gave their subjects access to the guesses of the other members of the group. As a result, they were able to adjust their subsequent estimates based on the feedback of the crowd. The results were depressing. All of a sudden, the range of guesses dramatically narrowed; people were mindlessly imitating each other. Instead of canceling out their errors, they ended up magnifying their biases, which is why each round led to worse guesses. Although these subjects were far more confident that they were right─it's reassuring to know what other people think─this confidence was misplaced. The scientists refer to this as the 'social influence effect.' In their paper, they argue that the effect has grown more pervasive in recent years. We live, after all, in an age of opinion polls and Facebook, cable news and Twitter. We are constantly being confronted with the beliefs of others, as the crowd tells itself what to think. In an ideal world, all this information would improve our beliefs. The range of viewpoints in the media and on the Web would be translated into a diversity of thoughts and collective wisdom. Alas, that doesn't seem to be happening. Consider a recent study by James Evans, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, in which he analyzed 34 million academic articles published in the last 50 years. Though the digitization of journals has made it far easier to find this information─most articles are now accessible online─Mr. Evans found that digitization also coincided with a narrowing of citations. Since search engines rank highly cited articles first, scholars tend to focus on them, which leads to the neglect of more obscure research, even when it is relevant. We live at a time when seemingly everything is available, but it's more likely than ever before that we're all reading the same thing. The lure of conformity is hard to resist. This research reveals the downside of our hyperconnected lives. So many essential institutions depend on the ability of citizens to think for themselves, to resist the latest trend or bubble. That's why it is important, as the Founding Fathers realized, to cultivate a raucous free press, full of divergent viewpoints. And yet, while the Web has enabled new forms of collective action, it has also enabled new kinds of collective stupidity. Groupthink is now more widespread, as we cope with the excess of available information by outsourcing our beliefs to celebrities, pundits and Facebook friends. Instead of thinking for ourselves, we simply cite what's already been cited. We should be wary of such influences. The only way to preserve the wisdom of the crowd is to protect the independence of the individual. JONAH LEHRER