There is noise in the sense that, for example, a stop and frisk policy was not executed identically by all policemen. We think of it like washing your hands when you vaccinate. So moving toward solutions with, in that example, a better police training,. Not just to stop and frisk, but we can apply that across the board.
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.