A review by phsn
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony

4.0

“Noise is rarely recognised, bias is the star of the show.”
A book attempt to redress the balance.

Bias: systematic deviation
Noise: random scatter
Judgement: a form of measurement with human mind as instrument

Theme:
• Wherever there is judgment, there is noise —and more of it than you think.
• Whenever there is prediction, there is ignorance, and probably more of it than we think.

Component of noise:
✔️error into bias & system noise
✔️system noise into level noise & pattern noise
✔️pattern noise into stable pattern noise & occasion noise

Key Points:
1- Judgement is difficult because the world is complicated, uncertain place —disagreement is unavoidable wherever
2- The extent of these disagreements is much greater than expected
3- Noise can be reduced —some methods adopted to reduce noise can simultaneously reduce bias as well.
4- Noise reduction efforts often raise objections and run into serious difficulties.
5- Poor group dynamics add/amplify noise

Fav parts:
• A good question to ask that caught my attention is, “How would a value of such an improvement compare with the value of reducing bias?” —Suggested few methods
• Variability is expected, not just between us but within ourselves which influenced by countless factors.
• “How good is human judgement in relative to formula? How noise impairs clinical judgement?” —mechanical aggregation outperforms clinical judgement
• “We think we understand what is going on here, but could we have predicted it?”

Not up to my expectations :( BUT, they did made this book easier to understand & in short chapters thus suitable for #beginners. Good that each chapters ended with brief generalised propositions but some inputs are not constant throughout the book. Recommended to those who would like to start reading on psychology & anyone interested in learning/reducing effects of noise in decision making.

“Noise is often a larger component of error than bias —bias is a compelling figure, while noise is the background to which we pay no attention”