Stupidity in numbers?

If many individually intelligent people are put together to perform a task, do they make an entity of lesser intelligence?

Lets examine three examples: Albert Einstein, landing on the moon and world hunger.

Albert Einstein solved one of the mysteries of the universe, a very admirable achievement by a single human being. Landing on the moon is probably one of the greatest technological accomplishments of humanity in recent history. A task involving a very large number of people (and a few chimps) working towards one seemingly impossible, never been done before, goal. World hunger by comparison seems trivial. It is an unpleasant reminder that today with limitless technology and endless riches, world hunger remains a haunting problem. There are probably many more people working towards ending world hunger compared to people who worked on reaching the moon.

Here are our three examples. First, Albert Einstein, one person solving one of the mysteries of the universe. Second, landing on the moon, a moderately large group of people succeeding in a technological challenge. Third, world hunger, a very large group of people failing in an apparently simple logistical task.

The question is: if Einstein was not working alone, would he have failed? If the number of people involved in reaching the moon was much larger, would there be a greater chance of failure? If the number of people working on world hunger is reduce, is there a greater chance of success? Is there stupidity in numbers?