In Defense of Intuition (with Gerd Gigerenzer)
12/29/202558 min
Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer explains the power of intuition, how intuition became gendered, what he thinks Kahneman and Tversky's research agenda got wrong, and why it's a mistake to place intuition and conscious thinking on opposing ends of the cognition spectrum. Topics he discusses in this wide-ranging conversation with EconTalk's Russ Roberts include what Gigerenzer calls the "bias bias"--the overemphasis on claims of irrationality, why it's better to replace "nudging" with "boosting," and the limitations of AI in its current form as a replacement for human intelligence and intuition.
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First 90 secondsRuss Roberts· Host0:00
(instrumental music) Welcome to EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to EconTalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail@EconTalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. Today is December 4th, 2025, and my guest is psychologist and author Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. This is Gerd's third appearance on the program. He was last here in August of 2022, discussing artificial intelligence. Our topic for today is his book, The Intelligence of Intuition. Gerd, welcome back to EconTalk.
Gerd Gigerenzer· Guest1:01
Oh, I'm glad to be here with you again.
Russ Roberts· Host1:03
Tell us what you mean by intuition. It's a very, um, imprecise word to some extent, but you mean something a little more precise.
Gerd Gigerenzer· Guest1:13
True. Intuition is a feeling based on years of experience that is... comes fast into your consciousness. So, you feel what you should do or what you shouldn't do, and, uh,