Perilous Mental Shortcuts

“Heuristics are cognitive rules of thumb, hard-wired mental shortcuts that everyone uses every day in routine decision making and judgment. The study of heuristics is one of the most robust areas of scientific research today, producing hundreds of academic articles a year, yet the concept is little known outside the labs and offices of academia. This book is an attempt to remedy that.” “Heuristics are normally helpful — indeed, they are crucial to getting through the myriad of decisions we face every day… But they’re imperfect and often irrational. They can be traps, as they were in the frozen mountain pass where Carruthers perished.”