ABSTRACT
The mid 20th century saw the development of general-purpose statistical decision theory, which can readily adapt to changing circumstances and, in principle, analyze any choice whatsoever. In the early 1960s, research groups at Harvard and Stanford developed and promoted Applied Decision Theory (ADT) as a universal methodology for improving rationality in a world where poor decisions were damaging lives and communities. ADT modeling began to be taught to deciders-in-training throughout professional education. It was expected that it was only a matter of time before ADT would become standard practice in management and other applied domains. Digesting the decision principles and tools presented won’t guarantee avoiding the pitfalls that, unaided, intuition and informal reasoning might cause. But it can move students perceptibly in the right direction, and do at least as much good as spending the same effort on most other academic subjects would.
