http://waderoush.typepad.com/twr/2005/03/james_surowieck.html

The article written by Rhody about a talk given by Surowiecki bring up a few valid points about the benefits and problems brought about by the ability to share information between people. He begins by mentioning that information taken from many sources can provide a diverse set of ideas that will greatly aid in solving many problems that we may come across. However, the herd mentality of humans will usually get in the way of this phenomenon. In all sorts of situations, humans tend to follow the crowd, which is precisely what constitutes an information cascade.

            The problem with these information cascades however is that much of the time they will steer many people in the wrong direction. Surowiecki uses an example from a study of computer science at the University of Michigan. Subjects competed until divided into dumb, intelligent and random groups. When tested as groups, the intelligent group slightly beat the dumb group but the random group easily beat both groups. The conclusion was not that they knew more necessarily but that they had different ideas. When it comes to information cascades, often  following the group will cause harm to everyone.