Gerd Gigerenzer

His book Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart (1999) laid out his adaptive view of bounded rationality--how people endowed with limited cognitive capacities and immersed in uncertainty can make good decisions: He showed empirically and with mathematical analysis that simple heuristics--rules of thumb--can often work as well as or even better than complex algorithms. In his academic career, Gigerenzer has taught students, doctors, and lawyers to be better decision makers. His recent research builds on this education effort to help doctors and patients communicate better about symptoms, tests, treatments, and risks, and thereby improve health decisions.