Delphi effect

The Delphi effect is described by Eric S Raymond in his book, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" as:

"Sociologists discovered that the averaged opinion of a mass of equally expert or equally ignorant observers is quite a bit more reliable a predictor than the opinion of a single randomly-chosen one of the observers."

Raymond himself believes at least some of the work substantiating this effect was done at RAND Corporation, however no references to published, peer reviewed, sociological, psychological or other works have been found.

Its origin may lie in the "delphi pool" concept introduced in the novel "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner, which is a work of fiction, and not backed up by scientific research.