The Real World

What fascinated me about Spent: Sex, Evolution, And Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller (according to this review) was the behavior of the people in it. Evolutionary psychologists tried to get along with economists, but the economists lived in their own world and couldn't stretch. You'd think it's a good match, but each specialty has its own ground, and can be closed to new ideas.

Then the psychologists met some marketing people and they got along famously. This is because marketing people have to show results, and any information they can use they grab onto.

It reminded me of a similar story in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan. Taleb can be high-handed, and doesn't seem to find most people, including academics--especially academics--up to his standard. So he wasn't looking forward to a conference with military types in Las Vegas. To his surprise, they were among the most rational, intelligent people he'd met. There's a stereotype (coming from academia?) that the military is full of slow-witted, single-minded people, but, once again, those who make it to the top have to deal with real world problems. They can understand Taleb's concepts, and discuss them intelligently, while many tenured types are still stuck in their own limited, normal distribution world.