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You're nitpicking unnecessarily. When asked a 'do the trains collide?' math question, do you point out all the safety precautions in place that would prevent th
by crystalis 17y ago
You're nitpicking unnecessarily. When asked a 'do the trains collide?' math question, do you point out all the safety precautions in place that would prevent the collision?
- tjic 17y agoYou're missing my point. The original post was arguing "people are stupid and credulous". I am arguing that, no PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID - they are finely evolved to operate in the real world. If you present people with a REAL WORLD PROBLEM and they come to EXACTLY THE RIGHT ANSWER (as opposed to the "desired" theoretical answer) then the problem is with your ability to quiz people, not with people failing to be smart.
- req2 17y agoDesired theoretical answer: 1/2. Your answer: bet on heads "EXACTLY THE RIGHT ANSWER": Less than a one in a billion chance of heads.
- frossie 17y agoYou're missing my point I think you are missing your own point. Faced with 99 head tosses, you think the 100th should be heads because it proves the system is gamed (eg. the coin is biased). The article addresses people who believe that faced with 99 head tosses, they think the 100th should be tails (because it is "due"). In other words, the people in the article behave as if they believe that the system in independent (not gamed) but reach the wrong answer.
- lacker 17y agoBut your argument supports the opposite of the classic gambler's fallacy. The traditional mistake is to expect the 30th flip to be less likely to be heads, because 30 in a row is rare. So peoples' intuition is even less appropriate to the real world than probability theory is.