What can humans learn from meerkats? More than you might imagine.
A provocative new study shows that, among meerkats and other social animals, conflict yields better decisions about shared goals, such as foraging and avoiding predators. And the researchers behind the study — in which existing scientific literature was used to create a complex model of decision-making — think something similar to this so-called “swarm intelligence” may play out in the human realm as well.
“Our results showed that shared decisions, made by animals without conflict, were often surprisingly poor,” study co-author Dr. Christian List, professor of political science and philosophy at the London School of Economics, said in a written statement. “It’s possible that this could be applicable to human collective decision making and would provide a strong argument for not excluding different or minority factions from collective decisions.”
James' World 2 
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