Your report on recent research that shows not only that many people make more accurate guesses than a few, but also that many guesses by a single person are more accurate than a few guesses by the same person (“The Crowd Within,” June 28, 2008). However, there is evidence that the same idea goes many centuries back. As witnessed by Edward William Lane’s Arab Society in the Time of the Thousand and One Nights (2004, first published in 1983), the learned Imam El-Jara’ee advises in his book Shir’at el-Islam that a man about to enter upon an important undertaking should consult ten of his most intelligent friends; or, if he does not have more than five such friends, he should consult each of them twice; or, if he has only one intelligent friend, that he should consult him at ten different occasions. Sadly, the learned Imam goes as far as advising that a man who does not have a single worthy friend should consult his wife and then do exactly the opposite of her advice. Alas, the infallibility of wives is unlikely to be uncovered by further research!