© Melvin Lee | ShutterstockWhen deciding on a direction to swim in, a few uninformed fish may sway the group toward the majority opinion, new research finds.
Ignorance can be bliss, but it seems it can also promote democracy.
Strongly opinionated members can determine a group's consensus decision, even when they make up only a small minority. New research of animal behavior shows, however, that adding ignorant or uninformed members to the group can counteract the minority's powerful influence and promote a more democratic outcome.
Researchers used several computer models to investigate the
decision-making process in various animal groups when a majority wants to travel in one direction and a minority wants to go in another.
When the strength of the two packs' preferences was equal, the group was much more likely to follow the majority. But when the minority had stronger feelings than the rest of the group about its direction, it was able to control the decision.
When the researchers added a third crowd that was ignorant of the options, the majority was able to spontaneously wrestle the decision back from the minority.
"It's very counterintuitive," said Iain Couzin, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, who was lead author of the study published in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal
Science. "We previously assumed that uninformed individuals
promote extremism by being easily exploited by the [strong] minority."
Comment: Read HAARP and The Canary in the Mine and Mind Control and HAARP to learn more about the purpose of HAARP.
As for Phobos-Grunt probe's failed launch, another possibility is Earth's changing atmosphere due to comet dust loading that may lead to unexpected malfunctions.