Why are checklists so good at managing complex procedures? Because complexity is exactly where human memory fails, and a checklist does not get tired. Think about a pilot before takeoff. Everyone knows about the steps he runs, and he runs them because flying a plane is genuinely complex and skipping a step can be fatal. There was a recent crash in the Northeast where a pilot skipped some steps, could not get the plane airborne, and could not slow it enough to survive. They died at a hundred and fifteen miles an hour, a speed many cars would survive, all from [...]