Eliminating bias from a set of judgments will not eliminate all error. The errors that remain when bias is removed are not shared. They are the unwanted divergence of judgments, the unreliability of the measuring instrument we apply to reality. They are noise. Noise is variability in judgments that should be identical. We use the term system noise for the noise observed in organizations that employ interchangeable professionals to make decisions, such as physicians in an emergency room, judges imposing criminal penalties, and underwriters in an insurance company. Much of this book has been
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