How Berkeley scientists think about making better decisions

Four UC Berkeley professors sat down recently to talk about something we all do dozens of times a day: deciding. But they weren't discussing what to have for lunch. They were exploring how their fields—philosophy, political science, physics, neuroscience—each offer a different lens for thinking more clearly when it actually matters.

What experts see that we miss

Wes Holliday, a philosophy professor, focuses on group decision-making and voting systems. His work reveals something counterintuitive: the way we're asked to choose shapes what we choose. A voting method that seems neutral often isn't. Small changes to how we frame options can shift outcomes dramatically, which matters enormously in democracies where the rules of voting determine who holds power.

Meanwhile, Marika Landau-Wells, a political scientist, studies a darker corner of decision-making: how fear shapes national security choices. Her research shows that decisions made to protect ourselves sometimes create the exact dangers we're trying to avoid. A country might build weapons to feel safer, but that makes neighbors feel threatened, so they build weapons too. The logic seems sound in isolation; the outcome is collective danger. Understanding this gap—between what feels protective and what actually is—matters for anyone in a position to influence policy.

Saul Perlmutter, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, teaches a course called "Sense and Sensibility and Science" that sounds deceptively gentle. It's actually about equipping students with tools to think clearly when faced with complex information. In a world drowning in data and claims, Perlmutter's insight is straightforward: most people never learned how to evaluate evidence or spot their own blind spots. That's fixable.

Lindsay Wilbrecht, a neuroscience professor, brought developmental perspective to the table. She studies how decision-making actually changes across adolescence—from age 8 through 18—and how it differs from adult thinking. The teenage brain isn't a broken adult brain; it's differently wired. Teenagers weigh risk and reward differently, which explains why they sometimes seem reckless. It's not stupidity. It's neurobiology.

The panel, moderated by Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, the college's executive dean, was part of the College of Letters and Science's Salon Series—a program that deliberately brings together faculty from different disciplines to tackle questions that matter across fields. This one landed on something universal: we all make decisions, but most of us have never seriously studied how to do it better.

What emerged wasn't a formula. Instead, it was a shared recognition that decision-making improves when you understand the systems shaping your choices—whether those are voting rules, threat perceptions, cognitive biases, or the actual wiring of your brain at different ages. The conversation suggested that better decisions don't come from being smarter. They come from being more aware of how your mind works, and how the structures around you influence what you choose.