I knew it in my gut

A couple posts ago, I took a run at what might be a developing trend in management advice to count on "gut instinct." For those just tuning in, I was a little snarky arguing that instinct is generally the result of experience. Still think I'm right there.

But, commuting via public transit today gave me time to get back into a book that's been on my nightstand: Rational Choice in an Uncertain World. [Got insomnia problems? ed.] In the chapter I read, the authors make the case that based on extensive empirical study, human judgment in decision-making rarely -- if ever -- beats the success score of a simple linear decision model (i.e., an Excel-based algorithm).

As intuition, or gut instinct, is the basis for human judgment in decision-making, I think the case just got stronger for not using your gut quite so much as your brain.

Posted by Grayson at November 7, 2003 08:14 AM