Today, Michael Covel speaks with Gerd Gigerenzer. Gigerenzer is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and is a former professor of psychology at the University at Chicago. Gerd is also the director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy (read David Harding the head of trend following firm Winton Capital). Covel speaks with Gigerenzer about heuristics. For those of you that trade; for those of you that invest; and for those of you that just want to navigate risk and certainty in your life, this conversation is mission critical. His work is the philosophical foundation of trend following success, for starters. Covel and Gigerenzer discuss uncertainty; comparing decisions to baseball (gaze heuristic); complex problems and simple solutions; using price action as a decision making cue; unconscious heuristics; the art of knowing what one doesn’t have to know; the less is more effect; the miracle on the Hudson River a few years ago as a case in point illustrating heuristics; the idea of an adaptive toolbox; the element of surprise in Gigerenzer’s work; the distinction between risk and uncertainty; intuition vs. rationality. This type of understanding is ultimately far more important than any trading system breakdowns. Want a free trend following DVD? Go to trendfollowing.com/win.