How people cope with uncertaintyBy Gerd Gigerenzer, Director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planch Institute for Human Development Berlin
What is the nature of human wisdom?
For many, the ideal image of rationality is a heavenly one: an omniscient God, a Laplacean demon, a super computer, or a fully consistent logical system. Gerd Gigerenzer argues, in contrast, that there are more efficient tools in our minds than logic; he calls them fast and frugal heuristics. These adaptive tools work in a world where the present is only partially known and the future is uncertain. Here, rationality is not logical but ecological, and this volume shows how this insight can help remedy even the widespread problem of statistical innumeracy.
Rationality for Mortals (which follows on a previous collection, Adaptive Thinking) presents Gigerenzer's most recent articles, revised and updated where appropriate, together to psychologists, philosophers, physicians, biologists, economists, educators, and others who are curious about the nature of rationality and how humans are able to make wise decisions.
