Monty Hall Paradox back in the news.

[nitrah55]

This time, undermining results in a 50-year-old psychology experiment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/scien ... ei=5087%0A

I love this stuff.

[tlynn78]

I love this stuff.

Vive la difference! This stuff makes my head explode. If I was the monkey, i'd just eat all the M&M's. Then throw, um, stuff.


t.

[MarleysGh0st]

From the article:

Here’s how Monty’s deal works, in the math problem, anyway. (On the real show it was a bit messier.)

Bravo to the Times reporter for recognizing that the actual show worked signficantly differently (and for sound, "keep the sponsors happy" reasons) than the nice, clean, mathematician's version of the scenario.

[silverscreenselect]

Kevin Spacey uses the Monty Hall problem as part of a teaching exercise for his math class in the new movie 21.

You can't read too much into it because of the fine print in the Times article, namely that Monty was not required to show one of the doors every time and in fact he rarely did so. He often played other games such as offering people various amounts of cash not to keep their selection.

On the show, Monty usually tried to gauge how a particular contestant and the audience would react before deciding what choices to offer them The reason he was such a good game show host was that he was so adept at gauguing people's reactions.

It's possible that a hypothetical game show host might only offer the contestant a choice if he had already chosen the car or if he had already a chosen a goat. Or maybe he would alternate car-goat-car-goat.

The point is that unless the host offers every contestant the same choice every time, you really have no way of knowing what your odds are. In some scenarios (he only offers the choice if you have picked the car), your odds are 100% if you keep the car. In others, your odds could be zero (if he does the opposite).

The way the question is worded, the host offers the choice every time, which makes the decision to switch the correct one. But the real life show was quite different.

[wintergreen48]

Capital One uses a lot of 'testing' for all job candidates. When I was going through the recruiting process WAY back in 1995, I was 'cased,' which is to say, I was given several different business cases that I was supposed to solve, which I thought was odd, given that I was coming in as a lawyer, not as a business analyst. But one of the tests that they gave me was this one, and I found out afterward that I was the only lawyer they were considering at the time who answered it correctly (and who gave the correct explanation for 'why' it was the correct answer). So my entire career at Capital One was apparently based upon my ability to handle a game show question. Which is as it should be.

[christie1111]

So my entire career at Capital One was apparently based upon my ability to handle a game show question. Which is as it should be.

I found this very funny.

I am glad you can have a sense of humor about it all.