In theory, prediction markets would be great. Invest how you really think, and let the market sort out whether there's actually a consensus, reward the winners, and punish the losers. 
 
In practice, it would seem scientists would often be investors in these science prediction markets, and I have to believe this conflict of interest would strongly tend to corrode the independence of their science. People do stupid things when their ego is on the line; people will do sneaky, manipulative, and evil things when money is on the line. 
 
Sounds like a good idea, actually a very bad idea. 
 
(Also the logistics of setting these up and defining good prediction targets seem decidedly non-trivial...)

On the "males are much better are scaling up in terms of social units capable of 'collective action'" hypothesis, Roy Baumeister has some interesting things to say. This is from a 2007 APA address 
(http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm) 
 
Gender inequality seems to have increased with early civilization, including agriculture. Why? The feminist explanation has been that the men banded together to create patriarchy. This is essentially a conspiracy theory, and there is little or no evidence that it is true. Some argue that the men erased it from the history books in order to safeguard their newly won power. Still, the lack of evidence should be worrisome, especially since this same kind of conspiracy would have had to happen over and over, in group after group, all over the world. 
 
Let me offer a different explanation. It?s not that the men pushed the women down. Rather, it?s just that the women?s sphere remained about where it was, while the men?s sphere, with its big and shallow social networks, slowly benefited from the progress of culture. By accumulating knowledge and improving the gains from division of labor, the men?s sphere gradually made progress. 
 
Hence religion, literature, art, science, technology, military action, trade and economic marketplaces, political organization, medicine ? these all mainly emerged from the men?s sphere. The women?s sphere did not produce such things, though it did other valuable things, like take care of the next generation so the species would continue to exist. 
 
Why? It has nothing to do with men having better abilities or talents or anything like that. It comes mainly from the different kinds of social relationships. The women?s sphere consisted of women and therefore was organized on the basis of the kind of close, intimate, supportive one-on-one relationships that women favor. These are vital, satisfying relationships that contribute vitally to health and survival. Meanwhile the men favored the larger networks of shallower relationships. These are less satisfying and nurturing and so forth, but they do form a more fertile basis for the emergence of culture. 
 
The whole thing is pretty interesting. 
 
I think the 'male networks=broader, but shallower' could explain being more forgiving of your neighbor's failings. You gloss over small things to build a better, more far-reaching network, which is important for male group activities like hunting, war, etc.

Following Nanonymous, I wonder how much of this correlation could be traced to coincidental cyclic offsets. E.g., we're entering a period of low/high mortality because of the economic conditions 20 years ago, or some such, and the epigenetic markers they set in the children who are now 20-25 years old. 
 
Occam's razor, I know, but I don't think it's any more speculative than the other ideas floated. 
 
I guess the next step would be analyzing which causes of death increased and decreased under economic boom/bust.

The computer security example was not a good one. Free (both as in speech and as in beer) tools are generally superior to purchasable tools in this context, as Don notes. 
 
The quote excerpted from Gladwell is also bad, in its original context and as a signifying example-- as previous posters have noted, there's an immense difference between something which costs 1c and something which is free. Gladwell may assert that nothing should have changed since "The price difference between the two chocolates was exactly the same"- but there's a huge overhead cost involved in evaluating the cost, reaching for your wallet, etc etc. Samskara makes this point effectively, I think. 
 
I think agnostic and Gladwell are lumping too many things under the umbrella of 'free'. There are now a large number of ways used to fund (or funnel resources into) 'free' products-- think google searches and open-source software-- that it's really difficult to generalize about the quality of something based on its consumer cost (or lack thereof). 
 
It could be interesting to break the analysis down into the different types of free, and try to correlate quality (or lack thereof) with the different ways something nominally 'free' was actually paid for or incentivized. 
 
As-is, though, swing and a miss.