The Truth About Making Complex Decisions

This Element is an excerpt from The Truth About Making Smart Decisions (9780132354639) by Robert E. Gunther. Available in print and digital formats.

How to boil knowledge down to its essence-and then act on it!

Michael Pollan boils down his nutritional advice to this: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Then, he recommends against eating anything our great-great-grandmother wouldn't have eaten. Pollan offers a simple heuristic that distills three decades of research on food and nutrition into actionable principles. In dealing with complex issues, a simple heuristic for decision making can keep you from being overwhelmed by data....