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Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

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Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#41

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

wizerdrobe wrote: post #11
paulcole wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the scenario is poorly written in your opinion?

TFA is very well written, but in almost every reproduction of the Monty Hall problem you’ll find it very poorly written such that one would reasonably be led to believe the question is “if I have two doors what is the probability.” Don’t believe me, go search for memes presenting the problem. It’s been on the internet for decades at this point. The setup is near always to send a poor rewrite then link you to a story…

> Of the cited hate mail Savant received, I have to wonder how many were setup with poor writing on the topic.

Have you spent at least equal time considering, given the tenor of much of it, how many were instead willingly exposing their simple misogyny?

You might be a bit younger than me, but I remember this well, and I remember this being one of my first introductions into the idea that men who are wrong will lash out with misogyny if it is a woman who proves their ignorance. Even academics.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#42

Post by niklasbuschmann »

> Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Without additional assumptions this original wording is not clear, it could be that the host always shows a goat, then one should switch, or the host shows something at random and we just look at the cases where he shows a goat, then it doesn't matter.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#43

Post by anonzzzies »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #37
Jimmc414 wrote: post #35

I never understood this one. Not choosing a new door seems like an implied 50/50 choice to keep your original selection. edit: I know it works out on paper, but if I put myself in the situation, I know that if I decided not to choose again that is a choice and I am re-choosing the same door.

I think that's what trips up most people. I found working through it to be really rewarding, you might too. Spoiler alert: consider how Monty's choices are constrained by what he knows, and how the player can capitalize on that.

Yes, although I wasn't very good at statistics in university (I found it too vague and non-math-y...), this one I never had much problems with; the fact that Monty is guaranteed to open a door with a goat and you already selected a door moved 1/3 to the door we both didn't select. You have the 1/3rd that you DID select the car, so the other he DIDN't select must have 2/3rd.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#44

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

Karellen wrote: post #38
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #21

This is something I remember from the time. I could not grasp the probability maths (still shit at it, sorry Ms Von Savant) but I could write a program to experimentally demonstrate it, so I did. In QBasic. Because that's what we had and we were happy.

It was the 100-door variant (described in the article) that was my key to properly understanding the result.

Yeah. I think my program code was ten doors or something.

It was years before I understood the actual lesson here -- both the probability lesson and also the way it hints at the fundamental truth that in life, binary choices may have been weighted in ways you don't understand, perhaps by the people asking you to make the choice.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#45

Post by wizerdrobe »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #40
wizerdrobe wrote: post #4

[flagged]

> I, like many, stated “50-50” because the odds of getting one of two doors right is in fact 50-50. Only if (in fact) it's an independent choice. It's not. If the prizes had been juggled behind the curtain after one door had been opened, then you'd be right. But the "weird setup", which is the point of the puzzle, makes it clear. Let's be real here: the point here for most of us is to think "oh it's 50:50", be proved…

Most replications of the puzzle are incredibly bad such that one is led to the independent branch with little indication that there was an intent to examine the totality of circumstance.

I find the problem interesting for its historically poor examples floating on the internet and their application socially beyond a math puzzle.

That’s my view and point in commenting.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#46

Post by Workaccount2 »

Total aside here, but this article is a good example of the problem, so I just want to point it out.

People go digging, usually pretty hard, to find insults to use as capital in whatever point they are trying to make. In this case, yes, she received a lot of criticism and ad-hominem attacks for her correct answer. But she wasn't really criticized for being a woman, despite it being repeated multiple times in the article.

Look at the given list of people who wrote her angry letters and what they wrote:

     Ph.D
     Ph.D
     Ph.D
     Ph.D
     Ph.D
     Non-doctorate professor?
     Don Rivers from Sunriver Oregon who made a sexist remark.
Why is a comment from Don Rivers given so much weight? Who the fuck is Don Rivers from the town of 1,400 people in central Oregon? Man or woman, if you receive 10,000 hate letters from the general population, you can surely find whatever criticism you want if you dig hard enough. But why pay attention or give any weight to these absolute nobodies?

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#47

Post by wizerdrobe »

n4r9 wrote: post #9
wizerdrobe wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Bertrand's Box Paradox is perhaps a less convoluted way of setting up a similar type of scenario: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand%27s_box_paradox

Funny enough I’ve seen the Bertrand paradox called the Monty Hall.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#48

Post by glimshe »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #46

Total aside here, but this article is a good example of the problem, so I just want to point it out. People go digging, usually pretty hard, to find insults to use as capital in whatever point they are trying to make. In this case, yes, she received a lot of criticism and ad-hominem attacks for her correct answer. But she wasn't really criticized for being a woman, despite it being repeated multiple times in the arti…

Because there would be no article and thus no clicks and no ad money without the comment from Don Rivers from central Oregon.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#49

Post by wizerdrobe »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #41
wizerdrobe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA is very well written, but in almost every reproduction of the Monty Hall problem you’ll find it very poorly written such that one would reasonably be led to believe the question is “if I have two doors what is the probability.” Don’t believe me, go search for memes presenting the problem. It’s been on the internet for decades at this point. The setup is near always to send a poor rewrite then link you to a story…

> Of the cited hate mail Savant received, I have to wonder how many were setup with poor writing on the topic. Have you spent at least equal time considering, given the tenor of much of it, how many were instead willingly exposing their simple misogyny? You might be a bit younger than me, but I remember this well, and I remember this being one of my first introductions into the idea that men who are wrong will lash o…

Interestingly I’ve correctly grow up more recently such that I instead see internet simps here rather than academic misogny as notable, seeing as the tables have largely socially turned since your (I assume by the username) birth year of 1875.

Re: Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem (2015)

#50

Post by Karellen »

gerad wrote: post #39

The intuitive way for me to understand the Monte Hall problem is to pretended there are 1000 doors. You pick 1. There’s a 1 in 1000 chance you get it right. The host then opens 998 doors that don’t have the prize. Do you keep your original or do you switch? Are the odds 50:50?

What improvement does your 1000-door variant have over the 100-door variant described in the article?
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