Ironic, then, conventional wisdom is a useful heuristic because of all these unconventional ideas individuals do attempt, and so the answer to keep moving humanity forward is, yes, go ahead and try that unconventional idea, or you will contribute to systemic bias.
I would expect the "wisdom of the crowds" to have a different result if, when asking for each person how many peas are in a bottle, each person is first told of the current running average or median. I think it would achieve a better result if everyone made their own guess independent of the "crowd". Otherwise, the random bias that occurred from the first 20 people's guesses is going to percolate because everyone who is guessing after will have their guess anchored when they're told of the group opinion.
I would expect the "wisdom of the crowds" to have a different result if, when asking for each person how many peas are in a bottle, each person is first told of the current running average or median. I think it would achieve a better result if everyone made their own guess independent of the "crowd". Otherwise, the random bias that occurred from the first 20 people's guesses is going to percolate because everyone who is guessing after will have their guess anchored when they're told of the group opinion.