# Sometimes Less Information Improves Prediction by Gerd Gigerenzer > “We can prove that situations exist in which a group does best by following its most ignorant member rather than the consensus of their informed majority, and we can prove that a heuristic that ignores all information except for one reason will make better predictions than a multiple regression with a dozen reasons.” > **— Gerd Gigerenzer**, *2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage* ## Sources and Context - **Direct publication and locator:** [Gigerenzer's Law of Indispensable Ignorance — Gerd Gigerenzer](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10224) — 2004 Annual Question response, contiguous sentence(s) within the representative extract. - **Exact original excerpt:** “We can prove that situations exist in which a group does best by following its most ignorant member rather than the consensus of their informed majority, and we can prove that a heuristic that ignores all information except for one reason will make better predictions than a multiple regression with a dozen reasons. Mnemonists, who have virtually unlimited memory, are swamped by details and find it difficult to abstract and reason, while ordinary people's working memory limitations maximize the ability to detect correlations in the world. Limited memory facilitates acquisition of language, in infants and computers alike; the more complex the species, the longer the period of infancy.” - **Context and editing:** Gigerenzer explicitly scopes the claim to situations in which an ignorant group member or a one-reason heuristic can do better; the poster does not generalize this to every decision. No editorial words were inserted. - **Local Edge archive:** [[research/Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation]], response EDGE2004-141. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/Information Persistence in Complex Systems|Information Persistence in Complex Systems]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Greatest Transformation in Human History|The Greatest Transformation in Human History]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Science Ecosystem|Science Ecosystem]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Science Ecosystem|Science Ecosystem]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “We can prove that situations exist in which a group does best by following its most ignorant member rather than the consensus of their informed majority, and we can prove that a heuristic that ignores all information except for one reason will make better predictions than a multiple regression with a dozen reasons.” — Gerd Gigerenzer, 2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-gerd-gigerenzer-sometimes-less-information-improves-prediction ```