False Negatives Can Be a Matter of Life and Death

It’s easier to understand when you’ve got things right than exactly how you got things wrong. Therein lies an insight that could save a lot of lives.

Consider relationships. You can know whether you’re happy with your partner, but you can never be sure you shouldn’t have dated someone else entirely. Or say you own a company. Good and bad employees are easy to recognize: Some work hard and are happy, others shirk or quit soon after their expensive training ends. But it’s much harder to know whether you’ve passed over good candidates, because you never gave them a chance to prove themselves.