Why do we think we know what we think we know? And that's an interesting psychological question as well as a philosophical one. So, did someone named jesus really exist? Ye, probably. Was he crucified? Probably the romans crucified everybody. Those aren't extraordinary claims, but that he rose from the dead and and did soto for my sins,. so i could be forgiven. Well, thethethere's no empiricism there. You just either accept it or not. If you don't accept it, you shouldn't be a christian. You're not a christian.
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.