Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment
Daniel Kahneman
From the bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and the co-author of Nudge, a groundbreaking exploration of why most people make bad judgments, and how to control for that noise. Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients — or that two judges in the same courthouse give different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different food inspectors give different ratings to indistinguishable restaurants — or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to be handling the particular complaint. more
454 pages, Hardcover
First published Little, Brown Spark
3.65
Rating
12357
Ratings
1387
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Daniel Kahneman
33 books 8603 followers
From Wikipedia:Daniel Kahneman (Hebrew: דניאל כהנמן (born 5 March 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, notable for his work on behavioral finance and hedonic psychology.
With Amos Tversky and others, Kahneman established a cognitive basis for common human errors using heuristics and biases (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky, 1982), and developed Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in Prospect theory. Currently, he is professor emeritus of psychology at Princeton University's Department of Psychology.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/daniel...
Community reviews
You know what the real lesson here is, don’t pre-order books based on the authors reputation alone. In a world filled with noise, these authors contribute to it through their generally inadequate book. I really wanted to like this. I liked Nudge which has Cass as an author, I generally liked Thinking Fast and Slow, and I want someone who’s not Nate Silver explain signal to noise ratios to help me curate better information in my life. But this book isn’t it. more
Daniel Kahneman is a Psychologist and an economist. He is one of the prominent personalities in the field of behavioral economics. With all his experience and expertise in these two fields, Kahneman is trying to find out what noise is and how it alters our judgements through this book. What I learned from this book 1) What is the difference between bias and noise We are so focused on removing bias that we commonly forget about the noise that also needs equal emphasis. Noise is something that is created when we behave in a different manner in similar situations. more
I’ve only ever come across the idea of noise in the context of information theory – something I thought this book would have made more mention of, but it didn’t, really. The idea being that the transmission of any signal is likely to involve noise (entropy being the one truly inevitable law of the universe – more than taxes, on par with death) and so figuring out ways to reduce noise ultimately depends on how important the signal is. At the start of the Life of Brian there is a perfect example. Jesus is giving his sermon on the mount, and he says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” – but some people further back hear “blessed are the cheese makers. ” Unsurprisingly, this causes an argument over why cheese makers might be singled out for a special blessing. more
The sheer variety of ways judgment can be clouded is mind-boggling. The more closely we examine judgments, the more noise turns up as a factor. In Noise, an A-list team of celebrity psych stars, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein pull together their confrères and evidence from the usual innumerable studies to delineate how bad it really is. Noise, at least in psychology, is “unwanted variability”. In practical terms, that means even the most focused person might be swayed by unnoticed noise. more
This book is criticized primarily for 2 reasons:* first of all, because it doesn't bring such striking mental models as System 1 and System 2 (from "Thinking . ")* because some have expected that Kahneman will ride on SJW wave and write a book on "racial/social bias", full of political correctness, etc. (hint: it didn't happen)Unjustly, because surprisingly this is a really good book. Seriously, if you think about this - is it even possible to write a good book, without avoiding excessive repetitions, on such a specific (and narrow) topic. I know I wouldn't be able to this, but well - I'm certainly no Daniel Kahneman. more
This reads like a required lecture. Three stars, they are all for the information I picked when it held my attention. more
Although interesting, the authors clearly show their bias in “Noise”. It was a disappointing book after reading the incredibly interesting and applicable “Thinking Fast and Slow”. My main concern is that they imply causation where statisticians would not claim more than correlation. Implying causation is sloppy and a bad statistical practice. They are greatly concerned with the randomness of individual impacts to people from judgments, insurance companies, and job interviews. more
Since reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman a long time ago, I thought, "wow. another book by Kahneman about psychology -- cool. "Well, Kahneman is only one of the three authors. This book is about as boring as it could be. I highly recommend this book for people who love turgid statistics and humorless, pedantic style. more
This book was a disappointment . I thought that it's gonna be a scientific book . But it seemed written by Malcolm Gladwell . Its a punch of stories nothing more. more
"Noise" is positioned as another ground-breaking dual lens to look at the world, fresh from Kahneman's desk. However, it is not as radical as TFAS since it only extends the central argument and is not half as well written. This one could have been an additional chapter in an updated edition. The central thesis is that while we worry about bias a lot (the basis of which was explored in TFAS), noise is the silent enemy - affecting our ability to think clearly and make sound decisions. Historically we have been blind to bias of various sorts, and we need to continue our pursuit of eliminating bias, but noise can be just as iniquitous and needs to be addressed as well. more
I really have no idea who the intended audience was for this book: the authors really, really dumb it down, to the point of explaining what variance is over several pages of prose. We did not all fail high school. At the same time, they bring into the discussion some serious tools you won’t even meet until you get to graduate school in statistics, like the “percentage concordant,” which is not some type of supersonic airplane, but a rank correlation type of measure, and even provide a mini-table to move you from percentage concordant (PC) to correlation. The table, by the way, is bogus in the absence of context, as percentage concordant is a construct that I’m willing to bet relies heavily on assumptions that go unmentioned here. The chapters end with summaries, which was OK for Thinking Fast and Slow, but a bit of an insult when the subject matter is so plain. more
Нова фундаментална книга от нобеловия лауреат Даниел Канеман, известен с предишната си творба "Мисленето", разглеждаща систематичните грешки (bias). В "Шум" Канеман разкрива един неразпознаван проблем при вземане на решения. Определя шумът като разликите (вариации) в резултатите на различни хора в една и съща ситуация. Например няколко лекари може да поставят различни диагнози на един и същ пациент. Поне няколко от тях грешат. more
Noise is bad no matter where in life we find it. In their new book Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein say there is too much of it in our judgments and explain how noise arises and what might be done about it. “Judgment” is not “thinking”. The book defines “judgment” as “a form of measurement in which the instrument is a human mind. ” Judgments may be less than optimal due to bias, which is systematic deviation from optimal, e. more
I have been very interested in the work of the psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman since around 2000 where I came across some of the ideas around over-confidence bias on an Executive MBA at Insead, and this was only cemented with his Nobel Prize win (with Amos Tversky) in 2002. I spent a lot of time over the years researching their work including their 2000 publication “Choices, Values and Frames” and applying the ideas (both Prospect Theory and the various heuristics and biases they identified in the field of Behavioural Economics( in some of my own professional work (as well as speaking on it to fellow actuaries and to others in insurance). Kahneman of course came to much wider prominence in 2011 with his publication “Thinking, Fast and Slow” which made it easier to talk about his ideas and their applications to professional work in general and to my own fields of insurance and actuarial work more specifically as more people had familiarity with them. See here for example for an article I joint authored which discussed both that book and Taleb’s “Anti- Fragility” (https://web. actuaries. more
This is one of the worst popular press social sciences books I've ever read, and I've read many. It gets a lot wrong about what we know regarding decision-making and basic statistics. While it's true that algorithms are highly useful when applied appropriately, this book massively overstates the case in their favor while neglecting important counterpoints, among other serious problems. Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" remains one of my favorite books on research in psychology and this is an extremely disappointing step down. I recommend skipping "Noise" entirely and looking elsewhere if you're interested in the subjects it touches on. more
A boring, amateur, and often misleading take on concepts that decision scientists, machine learning engineers, and statisticians have known and systematically studied for decades with far more rigor than these authors do. The authors are out of their depth here and contribute nothing new to the conversation. (For example, their "error equation," which they call the "intellectual foundation" of their book, is a basic concept taught in high school statistics. ) Their folk, popular-press series of books have grown tired and at this point seem mostly like money-making machines for them in which they restate the obvious and botch the nuances and state of the art. Remind me again why we're listening to a psychology professor, a business professor, and a law professor's amateur thoughts on statistics. more
The famous psychologist, economist and cognitive scientist Daniel Kahneman, known in Russia for the bestseller "Think slowly. Decide quickly" in collaboration with behavioral economics specialist Cass Sunstein and psychologist specializing in strategic decision-making Olivier Siboni wrote a scientific treatise on noise that has nothing to do with decibels. "Noise. The imperfection of human judgments" is interesting, although not the easiest to understand non-fiction. the main theme of which is the distortion of human judgments, which are expressed in serious discrepancies in the assessment of certain things: people, events, situations, This phenomenon is called "noise" in the language of sociology and, along with "displacement", negatively affects the performance of any system of human interactions. more
تدور أبحاث عالم النفس "دانيال كانمان" حول التفكير. يبحث في أنواعه وآلياته وزلاته. "التفكير(1)" في عمله الشهير السابق، و"التقدير(2)" في عمله هذا الذي بين أيدينا يخضعان لخلل داخلي خفي. ويؤديان إلى نتائج خاطئة؛ متحيّزةً حينًا وفوضوية حينًا آخر. عن "الفوضى(3)" تحديدًا يدور هذا الكتاب. more
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment is the new book by Nobel Prize winner in Economics Daniel Kahneman. His previous book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, was an eye-opener to me. Here is my understanding of the core concepts in Noise:A judgement is a decision made when a definite, invariant result can not be obtained at hand. Answering a school math question is not a judgement. Weather forecasting is still a judgement but it is less likely so because of our improved understanding of weather science and the better measurement of weather data. more
I loved Thinking Fast and Slow, so I picked this book up without thinking about it. However, this was certainly not as well formulated, deep or interesting. Soemthing about the writing style felt disjointed. The thoughts were not cohesive or conclusive. For a book about Noise this felt rather noisy. more
کتاب در مورد نقش نویز در قضاوتهای انسانی نوشته شده است و جاهایی که به صورت آشکار در تصمیم ها و قضاوتها دیده میشود، که به طور ویژه رو قضاوت قاضی ها و تشخیصهای پزشکی تایید کرده است. در ابتدا نویسنده به شرح تفاوت بایاس و نویز میپردازه که با مثال خوبی به زیبایی به تصویر کشیده شده است. نویز به نوعی پرکندگی تصادفی قضاوتها در مورد یک مسئله است. کتاب به چند بخش تقسیم شده است که در مورد شناسایی نویز، علل آن، اندازه گیری، چگونگی روی دادن آن، پیدا کردن در بخش های مختلف، مقایسه نویز در تصمیمهای انسانی، الگوریتمهای هوش مصنوعی و اینکه چگونه در تصمیم گیری هایمان دقت کنیم که نویز را کاهش دهیم، صحبت میکند. ��ه کرات در این کتاب از تحقیقات مختلف و مثال برای تفهیم مسئله استفاده شده است که ارزش علمی کتاب را زیاد میکند. more
Doesn't add enough to "Thinking, Fast and Slow" to warrant another book. Feels like one of those books where the author gets paid for every time they use a specific word (in this case, "noise") and have said it to themselves so much it has become a cult-like world view. In this instance, noise refers to the variations in human decision making which Kahneman attributes to a mixture of situational and systemic cognitive biases that covers old territory in the behavioural psychology world. He makes a case for a utopian rules-based slash AI system to guide decision making in spheres including law, medicine and HR, which can work to a degree to eliminate noise and bias but can also mute gestalt and out-of-the-box thinking. Aside from the odd forcefully inserted and admittedly interesting behavioural psychology study The 5 page conclusion at the end is all that's worth your time here. more
I should have known. Past experience has taught me that everything written or co-written by Cass Sunstein, be it papers or books, quickly turns out to be excruciatingly boring. This plodding, repetitive, and bland door-stopper is alas no exception. more
พูดถึง judgement ในระดับองค์กรและเสนอแนวทางการแก้ไขแบบรวมๆ ไม่ค่อยได้อะไรเป็นชิ้นเป็นอัน (ซึ่งก็อาจจะเป็นความตั้งใจของคนเขียน) ไม่ได้ตื่นตาตื่นใจ ทึ่งกับความเข้มข้นของเนื้อหาเหมือนตอนอ่าน Thinking Fast and Slow ถ้าเทียบกันเล่มนี้นี่แผ่วไปมาก. more
The basic argument of the book can be boiled down to this: 1) leave judgment tasks to the smartest and most logical people (i. e. , those who have the highest intelligence and pass the cognitive reflection test), 2) force those geniuses to follow guidelines and use the mediating assessments protocol (structured ratings of relevant factors) when making decisions, and 3) subject them to periodic noise audits (tests for unwanted variability in ratings and in subsequent evaluations). Overall, I’d say the book is just okay. Mostly, it repeats in abbreviated form the contents of Thinking, Fast and Slow. more
This is a non-fic about the way how uneven or ‘noisy’ are a lot of decisions we all do, some quite life changing. The ‘main’ author of the trio is Nobel prize winner for economics Daniel Kahneman, whose (together with Tversky) article was in the mid-2000s the most cited in economics and who is one of the founding fathers of behavioral economics. I read it as a part of monthly reading for November 2021 at Non Fiction Book Club group. There is a lot of talk about bias and it is definitely important but another important issue is noise i. e. more
Daniel Kahneman tem 87 anos e o seu legado está construído, tendo-lhe sido reconhecido o mesmo com o Nobel pela criação de uma área inteira: a economia comportamental. Neste livro, Kahneman apresenta-se com outros dois autores, Olivier Sibony quase desconhecido, e Cass R. Sunstein, reconhecido pela sua hiperatividade, com mais de 30 livros publicados, só em 2021 já vai com 3, mas também conhecido pela sua crença numa sociedade governada por algoritmos. Os autores dedicam-se à apresentação de uma nova variável de viés, ou melhor, uma nova designação para uma especificidade de viés, o ruído. Para os autores o "ruído é a variabilidade indesejável de juízos". more
The Behavioral Decision Theory (BDT) authors of Thinking, Fast and Slow, and Nudge are the authors of this review of theory and research on errors, biases, and noise in human decision making. These are hugely important ideas that are often poorly understood by many readers, including many who should know better. The book is well written and entertaining, with lots of examples and clear approaches for making use of these somewhat arcane ideas in our everyday decisions. Towards the end of the book, there are chapters that focus on particular professional areas and their difficulties in handling noise. The chapter on medicine is particularly good, including its discussion of noise issues in psychiatry. more
This book might be interesting if you're new to the topic, but overall, there's much less food for my brain than I would expect based on the previous "Thinking, Fast and Slow" Half of the book is describing multiple experiments that prove that people are biased and don't act rationally or make the right judgements all the time. Like, happy and fed judges do less sentencing and so on. The rest talks that mood, weather and other factors creating noise and affect our judgements. And that's pretty much it. Even the practical part is too generic to add anything. more