One of the most interesting points made by Gerd Gigerenzer in his “Gut Feelings” is that in order to understand what has happened it is often useful to consider as much of the information you can collect as possible, but in order to assess something right now, or to make a prediction about the future, you can have too much information and it either confuses you or bogs you down in analyses.
One fascinating example he gives is of a competition to pick stocks and shares. Asked to pick from a given a list of 50 companies in which to invest an imaginary few thousand dollars, the experts and knowledgeable amateurs did a lot of research into the companies then constructed their portfolios in the light of this. Gigerenzer and his colleague went out into the street and asked a random 100 passers-by which companies in the list they recognised. They then made a portfolio of the 10 most frequently recognised companies and this is the portfolio which won hands down, beating ALL the experts.
He gives other examples of this phenomenon. Basically it seems that if we know absolutely nothing about a certain subject then predictions we make will be right no more often than they would by chance. If we know a LOT then our predictions are not great either. However, if we know just a bit, our predictions are very good.
He says this phenomenon is about using intuition rather than a rational analytic consideration of a problem and points out that this intuitive strategy works best in circumstances where uncertainty is high.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Bob,
After getting this book out of the library, I finally ordered it from Amazon so I can scribble away in it.
I was sitting on the couch this morning reading it and it seems that in a stable environment imitation is the best strategy. And that is what most of higher education does. The problem is, education is needed for a dynamic worlds.
In a dynamic one, the intuition has the advantage (as you point out).
I’m not advocating a sort of mental Ludditism when I question rationality. The employee’s CV emphasizes the past. The university is still based the monastery ideal where one withdraws from the world in order to focus the mind. Meanwhile the world changes. I am interested in fostering intuition in myself and others.
I did just breeze through the book, but I like his discussion of moral value and slicing this up into individual, family, and community.
I do think that as ever, Christopher, you hit the nail on the head. What I like about this book is that it doesn’t pitch rationality and intuition against each other in a I’m better than you way – it argues instead for an understanding of both ways of using our minds and using each way appropriately