On being is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation, harnessing the power of the sciences

to explore the deepest and most perplexing questions facing humankind. Learn about the latest

discoveries in the study of hope and optimism, intellectual humility, and free will at Templeton.org.

The classic economic theory embedded in Western democracies holds an assumption that human beings will

almost always behave rationally in the end and make logical choices that will keep our society

balanced on the whole. Daniel Coniman is the psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics

for showing that this is simply not true. There's something sobering but also hopefully grounding

in speaking with this brilliant and humane scholar who explains why none of us is an equation

that computes. As surely as we breathe, we will contradict ourselves and confound each other.

In this reality check illuminates so many of our present tangles.

When I ask you about something that you believe in, whether you believe or don't believe in climate

change or whether you believe in some political position or other, as soon as I raise the question,

why you have answers, reasons come to your mind. But the reasons may have very little to do

with the real causes of your beliefs. And we take the reasons that people give for their actions

and beliefs and our own reasons for actions and beliefs much too seriously.

I'm Krista Tippett and this is on Being.

Daniel Coniman's book Thinking Fast and Slow brought his groundbreaking ideas which he pioneered

with his late friend and fellow psychologist Amos Tsversky into mainstream culture. And now he's

about to release a new book. He was born in Tel Aviv but spent his childhood in Paris where he and

his family became caught up in Nazi occupied France. He is a self-described and well-documented,

constant warrior. And his continuous questioning of himself and others is also a source of his

creativity, warmth and humility. I experienced this when he first sat down a little late for our

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