Unit 5 Noise Part 3

THREE PARTS to this assignment

TITLE PAGE NOT NEEDED

please Label each section UNIT 5, 6 and 7

1.

Unit 5: Noise Part 3

FIRST PART****

In chapters 9 through 12, the authors discuss evidence comparing the accuracy of statistical judgements to professional judgements and then describe objective ignorance and living in the ‘valley of the normal.’ In an initial discussion post of at least 250 words, address this prompt:

While it is well known that professional judgements are often flawed and produce worse expected outcomes on average than judgements that rely solely on statistics or rules, why is it that the myth of managerial intuition persists? Why do some managers insist on making decisions based on their gut instincts rather than analytical evidence?

On page 158, the authors state that causal thinking and the illusion of understanding the past contribute to overconfident predictions of the future…and contributes to neglect of noise as a source of error. Do you fall into this pattern? How do we convince decision makers to not do this?

2.

UNit 6 Noise Part 4

SECOND PART ****

In Part IV of Noise, the authors go into more detail regarding the sources of noise and how we can further separate the components of noise.

In Chapter 17 the authors discuss their conclusion that the largest component of noise is pattern noise (not level noise) and that stable pattern noise (not occasion noise) accounts for most of pattern noise. Were you surprised by this conclusion? Do you agree or disagree with their analysis? Why is this important for the coming discussion of how to address noise in judgements?

The other major conclusion of this section relates to causal versus statistical thinking. As the authors have illustrated several times, humans tend to think causally (we create stories that explain why things happen). Noise, on the other hand, is statistical. Why does a focus on causal thinking lead us to miss the importance of noise?

3.

THIRD PART****

Unit 7: Noise Part 5, Chapters 18-21

Part V of Noise is rather long, we are are breaking it up into two chunks. In chapters 18-21, the authors begin discuss how to improve judgements (considering selection of better judges and reducing bias) and provide two extended examples of noise reduction strategies.

In an initial discussion post of at least 250 words, address this prompt:

In chapter 19, the authors describe ex post and ex ante processes for reducing biases in judgements. Have you been involved in a decision-making situation that applied any of these methods? If so, please describe it and discuss its effectiveness. If not, describe how such a process could be applied to a decision-making situation with which you are familiar (if you cant think of any from your work, etc. consider how we could reduce bias in grading term papers at the university).

While we are discussing biases, in chapter 20, the authors discuss the case where fingerprint experts admit that bias exists in their profession; however, most felt that they personally were not subject to bias (see pages 255-6). This is the cognitive bias known as blind spot bias. How can we combat blind spot bias?