The "experiment" CBS's "Survivor" should have set up(?)

Okay, so the idea of any legitimacy attaching to social experimentation via a reality TV show like "Survivor" is pretty silly.  The sample size is too small, the tribe members are selected by producers and thus not randomly picked, and there are massive observer effects that would taint the experiment.  With that caveat in mind, I think CBS missed an opportunity to run a more interesting "experiment" than the one it has promoted.

For those who aren't "Survivor" fans, the show takes 16-20 contestants, and divides them up into "tribes," has the tribes compete in contests for rewards and "immunity."  The tribe that loses an immunity challenge has to go to "Tribal Council," where tribe members vote one of their own off the island and out of the game.  Later on, the tribes "merge," and the game becomes individual.  In the first season, four players formed an "alliance" to vote as a bloc and controlled the game, with all four going to the finals.  This has been the template for winning the game.

This year, "Survivor" cast 5 Caucasians, 5 African-Americans, 5 Latinos, and 5 Asians, with, you guessed it, four tribes of five each -- each consisting of players of the same race.  On the one hand, this was a laudable bit of diversification, since in the past, there had generally been one or two token minorities.  However, pitting tribes of different races against one another has left a bad taste among a lot of people.

It seems to me, however, that a far more interesting experiment would have been to pit a diverse tribe against one or more non-diverse tribes.  For example, tribe A could be all one race, tribe B all another race, and tribe C mixed of all races.  Is the strength of diversity, encompassing all different experiences and outlooks, overcome by the strength of unity, encompassing shared views, etc.?

Of course, I'm not serious about this proposal, at least, certainly not in the sense that I think it would be useful as an exhibit in any future Grutter-type affirmative action case before the courts.  Apart from the methodological problems identified above, "Survivor" is a far cry from an educational setting such as a university.  To the extent that it may dramatize the relative advantages (and costs) of diversity, however, the "diverse" vs. "non-diverse" tribe scenario would at least provide some water cooler conversation that would be more useful than the current incarnation.