Durham General Chat Thread

Showers?

... We don't value democracy as an instrumental process, that is to say we don't value democracy because we believe it forms the most efficient and effective form of government. Virtually no-one seriously claims this. If they do, it's generally just rhetoric. Rather, the point of having democracy is different. Democracy allows a form of government which people can consent to because they feel it is fair. It creates a form of government that we can consider legitimate. ...

Thank you Tufts!!

You reviserating?

yesh

And essaying

2 summative. 1 formative.

I do. A hundred years ago, the eugenicist Francis Galton set out to prove his contention that, with “the stupidity and wrong-headedness of many men and women being so great as to be scarcely possible”, power must be kept in the hands of a select, well-bred few. He carried out an impromptu experiment at a country fair, where there was a competition to guess the weight of a big ox once it had been slaughtered and butchered. The closest guess won the prize, but Galton wanted to show how hopeless the ‘collective’ (i.e. average) judgment would be. Nearly eight hundred people took part and Galton obtained a list of all their guesses. The ox, when slaughtered, yielded 1,197 lbs of meat. Galton worked out the average (mean) of all the guesses and it was 1,198 lbs. A graph of the guesses showed a normal distribution round this mean, which matched almost perfectly the objective truth.

The study was reported in the scientific journal Nature, and Galton grudgingly conceded that perhaps democracy did have something going for it after all. This compelling finding has since been replicated many times and in many different circumstances. The full story can be found in James Surowiecki’s acclaimed and readable book The Wisdom of Crowds.

thank you

Just saw this, and couldn't help but think of you.

Hit them? With sticks? You can request new stock, but knowing the library it would probably take forever...

I think they are supposed to check its in the library before putting it on a reading list.