Evans's 2009 BBS commentary flags Oaksford & Chater's enlistment of ecological rationality as unresolved — 'the link between the two programmes is unclear'

In Bayesian Rationality (2007), Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater cite Gerd Gigerenzer's fast-and-frugal-heuristics programme approvingly, framing it as behaviour that is rational without on-line computation of an optimum — "Such behaviour may be built in by evolution or acquired via a long process of learning – but need not require on-line computation of the optimal solution" (BR, p. 36, as page-cited in Evans's commentary; see caveat below). The move reads as an attempt to fold ecological rationality into their own optimality-referenced rational-analysis programme as a supporting case.

Writing in the same peer-reviewed forum — a Behavioral and Brain Sciences commentary on Oaksford & Chater's own précis — Jonathan St. B. T. Evans treats the annexation as an unresolved seam, not a reconciliation. He notes that the book elsewhere objects "to any form of rationality that cannot be justified by a normative system" (BR, p. 29) yet reaches for Gigerenzer's programme as an ally, and concludes: "But Gigerenzer appeals to ecological and not normative rationality, so the link between the two programmes is unclear." His broader verdict is that rational analysis "appears to be rooted in normative rather than ecological rationality."

The distinction Evans draws is the load-bearing one for the whole comparison: a normative (optimum-referenced) theory of rationality and an ecological (adaptive-fit-referenced) one are not automatically compatible just because both reject the old logic-based yardstick (the shared move stated in claim-oaksford-chater-redefine-rationality-as-reasoning-about-uncertainty). This is the most direct named primary-source assessment the vault has found of the compatibility question, and it points toward contested — see the synthesis in observation-ecological-rationality-and-rational-analysis-are-contested-not-compatible and the now-answered question-verify-ecological-rationality-vs-rational-analysis-compatibility.