The Wisdom of Crowds - the book

As the title suggests, 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by James Surowiecki maintains that groups tend to be smarter than individuals, in certain controlled circumstances.

As an example, in the tv show Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the audience is correct 91% of the time, and the expert is correct 65% of the time.

That is obviously a very controlled scenario, but it meets the preconditions the author sets for success:

• Diversity of opinion - Each person can offer a unique point of view.
  
• Independence - Each person's choice must not be affected by any other person's vote or opinion
  
• Decentralization - The group must be sufficiently diverse any pre-conceived bias is offset by another member of the group.
  
• Aggregation - There must be some method of tallying the opinions and determining the 'winningest' choice
  

The author mostly gives anecdotes to demonstrate his idea. But I wanted *more*.

• More controlled studies. Anecdotes are fun to read, but they don't *prove* a point.
  
• More hard numbers. So the group answers correct 91% of the time - does that change depending on how many choices are offered? Who are the experts, and how often are each of them correct?
  
• More discussion of how to use this knowledge in real life. How can you satisfy the preconditions in your workplace or wherever to implement this concept?