What Makes a Gut Feeling Work?

Intuitive feelings seem mysterious and hard to explain –and most social scientists have steered clear of them.

InGut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious,Gigerenzer goes a step further by explaining just why our gut instincts are so often right. Intuition, it seems, is not some sort of mystical chemical reaction but a neurologically based behavior that evolved to ensure that we humans respond quickly when faced with a dilemma?

Even books that celebrate rapid judgments why away from...