Today on Freckanomics Radio, a very special episode, a conversation about the late Daniel

Conaman, whose insights into human behavior have been threaded through this show for years, ideas

like confirmation bias and loss aversion and the planning fallacy.

During this conversation, we also learn about a research paradigm

that Kahneman embraced called adversarial collaboration,

which means working shoulder to shoulder with your rivals.

He felt that this is the right way to do science.

Conaman was a phenomenally influential psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in economics, wrote the best-selling book Thinking Fast and Slow,

and left behind an army of collaborators, mentees, and admirers.

With them we will take a careful look at the life and mind of Danny Kahneman, starting now. This is Freakanomics Radio.

The podcast. This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with

your host Stephen Dubner. Last month in a sunlit auditorium overlooking the Chicago River,

there was a gathering of psychologists, economists, and other social scientists.

This was the behavioral decision research and management conference.

The keynote event was supposed to be a conversation with Danny Conaman facilitated by Richard Thaler, his

longtime friend and collaborator.

Thaler is the University of Chicago economist who helped turn Kahneman's insights into the field now known as behavioral economics.

But when Kahneman died in March at age 90.

Failure came up with a new plan for the conference.

Now it would pay tribute to Danny Kahneman.

Freckinomix Radio was lucky enough to be asked along to moderate a couple of panel discussions

about his life and work. The episode you're about to hear is a condensed

...