Hard not to chuckle at: > People have erroneous intuitions about the laws of chance. In particular, they regard a sample randomly drawn from a population as hi

Hard not to chuckle at: > People have erroneous intuitions about the laws of chance. In particular, they regard a sample randomly drawn from a population as highly representative, that is, similar to the population in all essential characteristics. The prevalence of the belief and its unfortunate consequences for psvchological research are illustrated by the responses of professional psychologists to a questionnaire concerning research decisions. (emphasis mine) Not only does the statement say that “people” make this mistake then go on to cite a questionnaire only of professional psychologists, but the questionnaire is the prototypical non-random random sample the very psychologists taking it are allegedly proving misinformation about. Questionnaires select for people with the time, inclination, and attention to start and then finish a questionnaire. Infamously, experiments held at universities bias towards undergrads. Experiments that reward participation bias towards people motivated by the reward. Experiments that don’t reward participation bias towards people good-natured enough to contribute just for science. Randomness is hard.