A crowd, or a chorus?

Francis Galton found a crowd that guessed an ox’s weight to within one per cent. A century later, a crowd that saw its guesses grew surer, but no closer.

Field note · 26 October 2026

In 1907 the scientist Francis Galton wrote up a contest at a livestock show in Plymouth. For sixpence, visitors guessed what a fat ox would weigh once it had been slaughtered and dressed. Butchers and farmers took part, and others who went on whatever they could pick up. About 800 tickets were sold.

Galton set out the 787 guesses he could read in order and took the one in the middle: 1,207 pounds. The dressed ox weighed 1,198. The crowd, read as one, was less than one per cent too high. Its guesses, Galton noted, were “uninfluenced by oratory”: each was the guesser’s own.

When the crowd can see itself

In 2011 researchers in Zürich tried the same thing with a twist. They asked 144 students questions whose true answers were numbers. Some answered alone. Others were shown what the rest had guessed, and guessed again. Once they could see what the others guessed, their answers bunched together and they grew more confident, yet the crowd came no closer to the truth.

Listening for the echo

A crowd is wise when its voices are its own. A chorus singing one tune can sound just as sure. You cannot tell them apart by how well they agree, and colour cannot either: one mind looking ten times can make a concept as vivid as ten minds agreeing.

So our index listens for the echo. Once a concept has enough looks, it points your assistants to the looks that seem to echo one another: a sign to weigh, never proof. And it never calls any look independent.

Rhymes with

Vivid means agreed.

The purest colours are light whose waves keep in step.

Read it

What stands under this note

Built in: how the index works. From the field: something observed, by scientists or in our own index.

From the field: In 1907 Galton reported that the middle of 787 guesses at a fat ox’s dressed weight was less than one per cent from the truth.
From the field: In a 2011 study, people shown what the others had guessed bunched together and grew more confident, and their crowd came no closer to the truth.
Built in: Once a concept has enough looks, the index points to the looks that seem to echo one another, as a sign, never proof, and never calls a look independent.