EconTalk · Russ Roberts

In Defense of Intuition (with Gerd Gigerenzer)

December 29, 2025·58 min·5 clips

Gerd Gigerenzer explains how 20th-century psychology textbooks falsely claimed women are intuitive and men rational.

Intuition is taken seriously here, but not treated like magic. Gerd Gigerenzer starts by defining it as a feeling that comes fast because experience has trained it, often before a neat explanation is available. Russ Roberts wants the edges made clearer. That gives the conversation its tension, because intuition is not being defended as raw impulse or as an excuse to ignore evidence. The hot hand is the first real test. Roberts points out that even corrected research finds only a small effect, while great athletes might still laugh at researchers who miss what is happening during play. Gary Becker comes in through basketball strategy. If a player keeps making shots, the defense changes, which makes the measurement problem messier than it looks. The argument is not against reason. Gigerenzer is more interested in cases where researchers trust their rational framework too much and discount judgment from people who know the situation up close. Roberts brings up the bias bias. The phrase captures a real suspicion: people studying decision makers can get more attached to finding errors than to understanding what is going on. Framing gives them another case to test. A doctor can describe surgery as a ninety percent chance of survival or a ten percent chance of death, and the two statements are logically equivalent. Gigerenzer does not accept the easy lesson. The wording may still carry a warning or recommendation, because doctors know more than the bare statistic and patients notice that. The conversation stays careful rather than sweeping. Roberts keeps testing the claim and noticing where formal models get too tidy. Near the end, morality broadens the discussion. Gigerenzer says humans are social, held together by moral and religious fabrics that should not be dismissed. The defense of intuition stays modest: it deserves respect when it comes from experience and does not pretend to be mysticism.

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