How To Make Good Decisions, with Gerd Gigerenzer

Risk-taking is essential for innovation, fun, and the courage to face the uncertainties in life.

Yet for many important decisions, we’re often presented with statistics and probabilities that we don’t really understand and we inevitably rely on experts in the relevant fields – policymakers, financial advisers, doctors – to analyse and choose for us.

But what if they don’t quite understand the way the information is presented either?

How do we make sure we’re asking doctors the right questions about proposed treatment? Is there a rule of thumb that could help choose the right partner?

My guest on the podcast today is Gerd Gigerenzer, Director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Gerd is a former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books on heuristics and decision making, including Reckoning with Risk.

His new book, Risk Savvy, shows us how to recognize when we don’t have all the information and know what to do about it.

Here’s my conversation with Gerd Gigerenzer, author of Risk Savvy, in episode 466 of Informed Choice Radio.