before darwin mary, do not marry list which comes out of a letter benjamin franklin writes to joseph priestley who is the hero of my book, the invention of air he writes franklin a letter and says i have this complicated decision and says i can't tell you what to do, but i can tell you a method, divided sheet of paper into two sides. given this is the one thing most of us learn in terms of making decisions the science of complex decision-making has been stagnant for 250 years. in fact, behind the scenes there has been development and knowledge that's come into its own. in a rich multidisciplinary range of fields that have looked at this unruffled with how we can make them better. most of us don't know about, were stuck with the pros and cons model. this is a survey of the research and illustrated with different stories including darwin. also contemporary once come along look at the decision process that led to the radon osama bins moderns pakistani layer. it was an interesting process in terms of the decision that they used in identifying that there was bin laden and then deciding what to do a