Timeline for How to explain Monty Hall problem when they just don't get it
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Jan 22, 2019 at 7:42 | history | edited | Tommi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 23, 2014 at 19:44 | comment | added | DavidButlerUofA | The reason why the 100 doors version is not necessarily helpful is because of where people's idea of 50% chance is coming from. If it's coming from the fact that there are two options for what is behind the doors, then it may help. But if it's coming from the fact that after all doors are open, you have two doors to choose, then it is unlikely to help. I find it interesting that people stick to their own preferred explanation despite the obvious evidence that it doesn't work for everyone. | |
| Jun 22, 2014 at 2:22 | comment | added | Tutor | I may now have to track down a copy of How to Solve It ;) | |
| Jun 22, 2014 at 2:21 | comment | added | Tutor | Thank you for clarifying :) | |
| Jun 22, 2014 at 1:19 | history | edited | Andrew Sanfratello | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 17, 2014 at 12:36 | comment | added | bye | @user2357112 To me it's pretty obvious why this is helpful. People often claim that it's a 50:50 choice once one of the doors is opened, and some of them are completely resistant to any suggestion that this is not the case. Expanding the choice to 1,000,000 doors blows that argument away completely, so they're prompted to think a little more (and come up with another objection, perhaps, but some progress will have been made). | |
| Jun 17, 2014 at 10:49 | comment | added | Walter Mitty | In connection to expanding the number of choices, there is a strategy in contract bridge that depends on what is known as the "law of restricted choice". The Monty Hall problem is perhaps the simplest case of the law of restricted choice. There are a large number of beginning bridge players who simply do not get, and cannot apply the law of restricted choice. | |
| Jun 15, 2014 at 17:00 | comment | added | JPBurke | This is precisely how I first made intuitive sense of this problem. The essential realization that worked for me is how absurdly unlikely it would be to choose the correct door from among 100 doors. I realized that "switching" was the same as being able to flip the probability (instead of the number of doors being against you, now they were working in your favor). Essentially: let's say the door is chosen for you at random. Would you rather have that door, or the 99 other doors? I'm not saying this is a good explanation for others, but it was my own thought process. | |
| Jun 15, 2014 at 13:18 | comment | added | Tutor | Andrew: maybe edit in part of Marc's comment as your answer to clarify.....also IDK what Polya's heuristics are....maybe add a link to a Wikipedia page or other explanation? | |
| Jun 15, 2014 at 12:06 | comment | added | Marc van Leeuwen | @user2357112: This argument does not intend to transmit any intuition. It specifically targets at destroying the blind conviction that two possibilities that are equally possible are therefore equally likely; one this fallacy is abandoned, maybe the door to a proper analysis will be opened (and no goat will be found there ;-). The destruction of conviction is intended to happen by making the conclusion drawn from the fallacy more "evidently absurd". I have no idea about its effectiveness, but this is clearly the aim. | |
| Jun 15, 2014 at 8:07 | comment | added | user2357112 | I have never understood how this is even supposed to begin to be helpful. Nothing about it triggers any sort of intuition for me; you might as well be talking about the color of Monty's tie for all the relevance I've been able to see. What is this supposed to trigger in the learner's head? | |
| Jun 15, 2014 at 5:10 | history | answered | Andrew Sanfratello | CC BY-SA 3.0 |