Writer Michael Lewis’s new book, “The Undoing Project: The Friendship That Changed Our Minds”, is about two of the most important figures in modern psychology, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.
In this extract for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Lewis describes the emotional tension between the pair towards the end of their collaboration. It’s a compelling ‘behind the scenes’ view of the human side to the foundational work of the heuristics and biases programme in psychology, as well as being brilliantly illustrated by Pat Kinsella.
One detail that caught my eye is this response by Amos Tversky to a critique of the work he did with Kahneman. As well as being something I’ve wanted to write myself on occasion, it illustrates the forthrightness which made Tversky a productive and difficult colleague:
the objections you raised against our experimental method are simply unsupported. In essence, you engage in the practice of criticizing a procedural departure without showing how the departure might account for the results obtained. You do not present either contradictory data or a plausible alternative interpretation of our findings. Instead, you express a strong bias against our method of data collection and in favor of yours. This position is certainly understandable, yet it is hardly convincing.
Link: A Bitter Ending: Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and the limits of collaboration
Mind Hacks 
There was a recent freakonmics podcast that interviews Michael Lewis and talks about the book and details about this strange relationship!