Clear Thinking vs. Groupthink

Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. -Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

Courage may be a sine qua non of clear thinking, but more ingredients are often required. It happens also that "there is strength in numbers" (a nice double entendre, and we don't mean lying with statistics, either).

Much to the irritation of Western individualists, it turns out that difficult problems are best solved by groups of individuals, and the best ideas come from groups, too.  What, designed by a committee and a product of groupthink?   Are you, a believer in the supreme power of the individual, shocked and aghast?  You should be, because the evidence is compelling.  See Chapter 26, "How Many Inventors Does It Take to Make a Lightbulb", in Evolution for Everyone, by David S. Wilson.

This annoying conclusion is the tip of a dangerous iceberg, that humans have a kind of group mind, where the whole is sometimes smarter than any individual.  Not always, but sometimes, and those times can be very important.  So we're playing coquette today, teasing you with truth, but not the whole truth, and returning later...