This is a bias correction procedure, but they are also noise correction procedures. For example, when you have multiple judges listening to somebody play pears, they probably do that right? But it's very important not to have a discussion before they do their own ratings. You want the different judges separately to evaluate and only then start a conversation. A lot of times discussion in a group amplifies error instead of reducing it. How much of noise do we have in our current political devisiveness? We know it's increased over the last 20 years dramatically. The centre has shrunk, and the two ends, far left and far right, have increased. It's usually attributed to media or social media
Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients. Now imagine that the same doctor making a different decision depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. This is an example of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical.
Shermer speaks with Nobel Prize winning psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman about the detrimental effects of noise and what we can do to reduce both noise and bias, and make better decisions in: medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, bail, child protection, strategy, performance reviews, and personnel selection.