Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This dry tome is a rigorous academic review of the title issue: noise. Noise is distinguished from bias, and the author describes how both affect decision making and introduce errors in judgment. Examples include how criminal sentences vary greatly for nearly identical offenses, how individuals judge more harshly on the Monday after their hometown team lost than they do if the team won, how insurance claims adjusters evaluate losses differently, and many others. It provides some useful guidance for some decision makers, but for most people it does little more that provide a few counterintuitive curiosities, which can be entertaining. For the academic in this field, it is a well-documented exploration of the topic and worth reading and keeping as a reference.