How ‘Noise’ Affects Our Judgment

In expertise we trust: Throughout business, science, medicine and the law, we count on the experience and training of those in carefully vetted roles to deliver consistent information and judgments. But what if we are, collectively, unable to spot the way human variability undermines that consistency? What if medical diagnoses of the exact same symptoms differ hugely? What if judges are swayed as much by the time of day or other happenstance? What if, in our quest to make institutions free of unfair bias, we are overlooking an even wider cause of misinformation and injustice?