Systemic Errors

And systemic errors don't just appear in matters of human judgement. From 1993-2008, the same female DNA was found in multiple crime scenes around Europe, incriminating an elusive killer dubbed the Phantom of Heilbronn. But the DNA evidence was so consistent precisely because it was wrong. It turned out that the cotton swabs used to collect the DNA samples had all been accidentally contaminated by a woman working in the swab factory. In other cases, systematic errors arise through deliberate fraud, like the presidential referendum held by Saddam Hussein in 2002, which claimed a turnout of 100% of voters with all 100% supposedly voting in favour of another seven-year term. When you look at it this way, the paradox of unanimity isn't actually all that paradoxical. Unanimous agreement is still theoretically ideal, especially in cases when you'd expect very low odds of variability and uncertainty, but in practice, achieving it in situations where perfect agreement is highly unlikely should tell us that there's probably some hidden factor affecting the system. Although we may strive for harmony and consensus, in many situations, error and disagreement should be naturally expected. And if a perfect result seems too good to be true, it probably is.