The Importance of Precaution in Medicine

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David Frum: I think a lot of the wrong decisions that doctors make are not consciously done in any unpleasant way. He says economists constantly conflate their models with the underlying process of reality. "A model can be very effective at predicting, even though it's a very poor description"

Psychologist and author Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development talks about his book Gut Feelings with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Gigerenzer argues for the power of simple heuristics--rules of thumb--over more complex models when making real-world decisions. He argues that many results in behavioral economics that appear irrational can be understood as sensible ways of coping with complexity.