The wisdom of the crowd

Can you draw upon the wisdom of the crowd while hedging your bets against an undesired outcome?

First you have to realize their is a wisdom to the crowd. There is an example that involves how a crowd figured to within a pound the weight of an ox..

If you subscribe to the wisdom of the crowd thing, (termites, ants, bees, google, groups guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, you end up with a group that is more powerful than the best of it's individuals.

The fact that we often try to stack the deck or load up the bus with specific people we like, trust, or want to be around seems to be something to hold in tension with this wisdom of the crowd thing.

But I don't think you van have the cake of crowd wisdom and the control of eating it too.

The question is: do we want to know the weight of the ox?

Or do we really just want to be the one closest to the right answer?