Don Ross

About

I’m an experimental economist and philosopher of science, based at University College Cork in Ireland since 2016, the University of Cape Town in South Africa since 1997, and Georgia State University in Atlanta, USA since 2010. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, and growing up mostly in Ontario, I earned my PhD at the University of Western Ontario in 1990. Since then I’ve published many academic articles and books on a range of topics, and have done policy consulting for public and corporate clients, including the World Bank, the South African National Roads Agency, the US Department of Commerce, and the Government of Namibia. I currently live in Cork, Ireland.

This site has information on, and links to, my main current projects.

News

The Gambling Animal

Humanity's unique relationship with risk has driven us to defy the evolutionary odds. But as the stakes keep mounting, how long before our luck runs out?

Special Projects

I have a number of current special projects: experiments with elephants on risky choices; a broader conservation project with Ross Harvey; and a project with Wynn Stirling on game theory for social networks.

CEAR Experiments in the Lab

Since 2010, I’ve been working with Glenn W. Harrison and various teams of co-researchers sponsored by CEAR to design and analyse laboratory experiments exploring responses to risk in different groups of people.

South Africa’s Rural Roads

Since 1999, and since 2012 with Matthew Townshend, I’ve worked on improving the efficiency of maintenance and upgrading of South Africa’s rural road network.

Book Reviews

The Gambling Animal

The Gambling Animal is a masterpiece in interdisciplinary work that weaves together the tale of humans (and elephants!) by looking at convergent evolution, cultural evolution and risk management strategies that have arisen in response to various ecological challenges.

This is a masterful integration of scientific insights on “the human path to ecological domination,” a scholarly work made accessible to the intelligent non-specialist with care to explain the basic terms and concepts.

This is a fascinating exploration of the way people who are individually risk-averse take big risks collectively, including now gambling with the existence of humanity. The authors weave together insights from economics and evolutionary science to paint a persuasive picture of how humans’ social brains - developed in response to environmental uncertainty - have given us a uniquely powerful but dangerously flawed type of intelligence.

This valuable and highly enjoyable book offers a fresh perspective: human evolution as a story of collective risk management, seasoned with a bit of luck. The Gambling Animal takes us on a tour through the gambles of life, from the survival struggles of early hominids to the allure of video poker to our high-stakes wager on climate change. If you are curious about humanity’s evolutionary gamble, this book is for you.

A sweeping and page-turning story of how humans - and other animals - manage the myriad risks that continually face us. The authors make a compelling case that the management of risk shapes whether we flourish (or perish) both as individuals, and as a species.