Pinker seems to be missing the same major point that Gigerenzer et al. continuously miss, a point made by those in the heuristics and biases tradition from the beginning (e.g. Baron 1985): the distinction between normative, descriptive, and prescriptive rationality. In a paper I’m developing, I explain:
Our view of normative rationality does not imply, however, that humans ought to explicitly use the laws of rational choice theory to make every decision. Neither humans nor machines have the knowledge and resources to do so (Van Rooij 2008; Wang 2011). Thus, in order to approximate normative rationality as best we can, we often (rationally) engage in a “bounded rationality” (Simon 1957) or “ecological rationality” (Gigerenzer and Todd 2012) that employs simple heuristics to imperfectly achieve our goals with the limited knowledge and resources at our disposal (Vul 2010; Vul et al. 2009; Kahneman and Frederick 2005). Thus, the best prescription for human reasoning is not necessarily to always use the normative model to govern one’s thinking (Stanovich 1999; Baron 1985).
In short, normative models tell us how to evaluate judgments and decisions in terms of their departure from an ideal standard. Descriptive models specify what people in a particular culture actually do and how they deviate from the normative models. Prescriptive models are designs or inventions, whose purpose is to bring the results of actual thinking into closer conformity to the normative model. If prescriptive recommendations derived in this way are successful, the study of thinking can help people to become better thinkers.
What does mainstream academic prescriptive rationality look like? I get the sense that’s where Eliezer invented a lot of his own stuff, because “mainstream cogsci” hasn’t done much prescriptive work yet.
Pinker seems to be missing the same major point that Gigerenzer et al. continuously miss, a point made by those in the heuristics and biases tradition from the beginning (e.g. Baron 1985): the distinction between normative, descriptive, and prescriptive rationality. In a paper I’m developing, I explain:
Or, here is Baron (2008):
What does mainstream academic prescriptive rationality look like? I get the sense that’s where Eliezer invented a lot of his own stuff, because “mainstream cogsci” hasn’t done much prescriptive work yet.
Examples: Larrick (2004); Lovallo & Sibony (2010).
This is helpful. Will look at Baron later.