Horses or Zebras? Phone a Friend? Poll the Audience?

[SoCalDem]

As hard as the media is trying to spin this, millions of people just cannot be totally "wrong".

Years ago a doctor told me about something he was taught in medical school.. He was told to remember that when you hear hoofbeats, it's probably horses..not zebras (unless you are in Africa). It was the professor's way of telling these young med students to trust their instincts and to look for the obvious FIRST...rule it in or out, and then go looking for zebras.

And on Who Wants to Be as Millionaire, the knowledge of the group was usually right on the money. Phone a friend made you hope your friend was smarter than you, but the combined wisdom of the group was better.

Also on Jeopardy, usually the first thing that pops into your head is the right answer (or question, in the case of Jeopardy)

We (the public) are smarter than the average bear (a toss to us oldies) and within milliseconds of hearing about the shootings, we immediately had teabag/republican venom on our minds...followed by the ever-right-friendly press' depiction of their violence-inducing tactics, as "funny, silly, exciting, grassrootsy, etc")..

We are now being dragged kicking & screaming on a search for zebras & aardvarks & capybaras & lemurs..

It's horses...

[Schema Thing]

1. well said