How to calculate stupidity

Two half-wits do NOT make a whole.

From SEOmoz.org: "Oatmeal" (I'm going to make a leap of assumption here and guess that's not his given name) brutally editoralizes the web design critiquing process.

As a professional web designer I've noticed a consistent trend in the majority of the projects I've worked on: The more time that is spent dissecting, analyzing, and critiquing a design by the wrong kinds of people the worse that design gets. The same trend applies to the number of people involved in the design process.

Group intelligence is multiplicative when idiots are involved - combining a half-wit with another half-wit does not result in a full-witted person, it results in a quarter-witted person (1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4). Combining a full-witted individual with a half-wit still only yields a half-wit. The more of these "wrong kinds of people" you have involved in the process, the worse things get.

(He has graphs!)

I do some web design (by "some" I mean "I know what Dreamweaver does"), so this rings true with me. And since I live on earth, with other humans, the part about "1/2 wit X 1/2 wit = 1/4 wit" REALLY rings true.

I wish I could get a bumper sticker with that on it.

Or, my favorite: "Half the people you meet are below average."

(Blast from the past: People are Stupid)