It seems that our hunches can pan out more often than we think.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/71514/page/1

just scientific evidence to back up what many people already live by.

Is it a healthy choice to set issues aside because good and bad are euqual?

"Con... I have a lump on my testical"

"Pro.. but if it's cancer, at least i don't have to worry about using a condom anymore".

:shrug:

Interesting.

I have always lived by my gut feeling, so far it hasnt lead me wrong.When you start second guessing yourself thats when you make wrong decisions.

I do not understand the point of the article. All it is saying is that to many, there is one factor that for them trumps all other considerations, and no one needs to be told that that is how they usually think. The examples in the article are spurious. In fact, the examples each, one could say, use the style of decision suggested by Benjamin Franklin, which is allegedly not as good.

In the medical example, the parents mostly ignore other factors as irrelevant and focus upon only one, which they view as important. This is actually identical to the Franklin method which is discounted at the start of the article. However, there is no "best answer" to this problem: if it was me, I would base my decision purely upon the time for the child to be seen. So it cannot be used as an example of how a "gut feeling" has made a better decision. Likewise for the school problem, the parents focused upon dropout rate and ignored other factors. The use of computers does not lend any weight to the strength of the conclusions, as computers only do what they are told, if garbage goes in, garbage comes out. If the complicated algorithm was not as good a predictor of dropout rates as the less complicated algorithm, then all it tells you is that it was a poor computer algorithm, but stated like that it is not very profound and does not generate headlines or a popular book deal. A computer does not have gut feelings.

What is more, it is not actually advancing the idea of choosing your "gut feeling" as you are basing your choice upon a data point, which you rate most significantly. For example, when buying a car, one usually has one criterion more important than all others, such as price, spaciousness, fuel economy, or the zero-to-sixty time. But if more than one vehicle meets your most important criterion, then you usually base your final decision upon secondary and tertiary considerations, or however many it takes to whittle the eventual choice down to one.

Added by edit (I left the post unfinished): A "gut feeling" decision would be to decide how well the car would meet your requirements based on how it looked.

Don't know why they didn't want to cover those scenarios where there is little to nothing to go on, before making a decision.
I have used my gut feelings or hunch especially when playing cards or dice.
My gut feelings worked so well when playing 21 once nobody wanted to play anymore and I was accused of cheating.
First impression, is what I usually, always go with.
If I go with the second or after, I rarely am right.
I have gotten awful impressions from people whom I know nothing about, only to learn later those impressions were correct or near so.