Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

I love this book. Why do we make decisions and how do we make them? What is that 6th sense that means we dont buy something or do something? How much importance should do we place on gut feelings? Quite a lot of this book is written elsewhere in his other books but he writes so well I will definitely be reading this again. He tries to rationalize what we are doing with gut feelings; we are following often very complex decision making processes which are often 'designed' to run in non closed systems ....ie when you dont have all the facts available to you and never will.

This is a straightforward read for a lay person, but it comes with an impeccable academic pedigree. Herr Gigerenzer makes his points convincingly and succinctly in this thought provoking book. I enjoyed reading it.Throughout the book interesting explanations are given about practical decisions; bringing theory to life and prompts personal reflection. For example, why did a group of middle class, middle aged men murder over a thousand women and children when they were given the opportunity not to do it? Why are only 12% of Germans but 99.9% of their Austrian neighbours organ donors?For me, the theme is that humans take more short cuts to make decisions than we usually realise. Sometimes we do this for good reasons; sometimes with unwanted outcomes - but often with fully understanding why. This excellent book helps reveal why we take the short cuts.

Very good on its critical side, bringing out the shortcomings of received wisdoms.The points are made clearly, with striking and memorable examples to illustrate them.Much less satisfactory in its rather clumsy attempts at theorizing. What is presented as "theory" is vague and rather vacuous, with some evident misformulations due to an apparent contempt for fine logical distinctions.willow

An interesting read as to why gut feelings do work and includes interesting examples. Probably rather too long but I am glad to have read the reassurance that Gut Feelings have a logical reason why they work.

One of my best reads of 2009. This is the science behind the more journalistic 'Blink'. Short and well written without dumbing down and shows why 'instrumentalism' is a dead end.