Averaging independent judgments cuts noise by the square root of their number but leaves shared bias untouched, so when a crowd shares an error, the average settles ever more precisely on the wrong answer.

Evidence 4 passages

• groundsSource document

  Averaging is mathematically guaranteed to reduce noise.

• groundsSource document

  Specifically, it divides it by the square root of the number of judgments averaged. This means that if you average 100 judgments, you will reduce noise by 90%.

• groundsSource document

  Because averaging does nothing to reduce bias, its effect on total error, MSE depends on the proportions of bias and noise in it. That is why the wisdom of crowds works best when judgments are independent, and therefore less likely to contain shared biases.

• groundsSource document

  Averaging independent judgments is guaranteed to reduce system noise, but not bias.

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Replaces