I find it curious how people who are as smart and technical as programmers are, can come up with testing/interview methodologies that so clearly deviate from th

I find it curious how people who are as smart and technical as programmers are, can come up with testing/interview methodologies that so clearly deviate from the actual day to day activities of what that position will probably require. There's definitely value in asking a candidate questions face to face as there are times when problems need to be discussed, but clearly there's a non-trivial segment of the programmer population that has trouble performing under this type of atypical situation. Why not also have a sort of "written test" portion of an interview where the candidate doesn't have to stress out about performing in front of people they don't know? It would certainly help reduce the flagging of false negatives. EDIT: by "written test" I mean something like a test where the questions are on a piece of paper or text file, and the interviewee just answers it on there, without another human sitting there and staring at them. The interviewee can always be asked to explain his/her answers afterwards.