Interesting article in the NYTimes about the significance of following hunches for U.S. Soldiers in Iraq. Among various stories of soldiers sensing danger and avoiding traps, are reports on various studies trying to understand how the better soldiers are able to detect these things, when ordinary soldiers do not.

But the kicker for me was this question, raised by one of the scientists regarding the ability for some to detect threats more accurately than others, near the end:

“The big question is whether these differences perceiving threat are natural, or due to training,” Dr. Paulus said.

This question is a much larger question than just for hunches – most things about behavior are vulnerable to the same nature vs. nurture debate and the answer is almost always both.

I wanted to ask this scientist how he decides what research to do, or how to design specific aspects of the study. Or even how did he decide that this was “the big question?” I’m sure he followed hunches to some degree in the decisions he made in doing his research. Most of what we do in life is hunc