A Beautiful Mind, Take Two
As the 1950s continue, the boy scientists undertake experiments with real people to advance their game theories. 'They don't act rationally,' the scientists say of their subjects, when the experimental results aren't what they expected. Rational and 'without heart' are not synonyms. The narrow definition of rational, that seems to believe it means 'without heart,' doesn't encompass the world. The people who appear to wish it did don't act any more 'rational' than the rest of us, but they're not afraid to use the word against their opponents if it helps to win arguments or at least shuts people up.
And John Milnor agrees with me about game theory:
As with any theory which constructs a mathematical model for some real-life problem, we must ask how realistic the model is. Does it help us to understand the real world? Does it make predictions which can be tested?...First let us ask about the realism of the underlying model. The hypothesis is that all of the players are rational, that they understand the precise rules of the game, and that they have complete information about the objectives of all of the other players. Clearly, this is seldom completely true.