Habitually I turned on the radio at 7pm last night and while I was busy being devastated and longing for Terry’s voice, I heard a pretty interesting segment about the reasoning ability of “the mob.” Apparently some old dead English guy (whose name I can’t remember) wrote many papers about how crowds/mobs/the mass, whatever you wish to call it, were nothing more that a collection of idiots who added nothing to society. He also, by the way was the inventor of Eugenics. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, in an effort to prove his theory, that the mob was no more than a mass of morons, he held a simple experiment at a town fair. He set up a cow beside him and asked, “How much does this cow weigh?”. Much to his surprise, the mean answer was only several pounds away from the real weight of the cow!

Hmmm, guess the mob ain’t so dumb after all. The same experiment can be done with anything, (“how many jellybeans in the jar?”) and the mean answer of the crowd will always be amazingly close.

So, even though you Treasure Trovers have apparently hit a wall, you’re much closer to finding the answer together than as individuals. Though I’m not sure a bunch of Dan’s friends aimlessly wandering around Central Park constitutes a mob…..though maybe.