11–20 of 122 posts
The engineer/lawyer problem explanation (spoilers) is only correct in a world where lawyers and engineers have all the same characteristics. That the sampled individual is a man will skew things all by itself. Of the lawyers, approximately 40% will be women, whereas only 11% of the engineers. So our samplee could be one of 27 engineers or 42 lawyers - we've already bumped Peng from .3 to .39! That he likes math puzzl…
The engineer/lawyer problem explanation (spoilers) is only correct in a world where lawyers and engineers have all the same characteristics. That the sampled individual is a man will skew things all by itself. Of the lawyers, approximately 40% will be women, whereas only 11% of the engineers. So our samplee could be one of 27 engineers or 42 lawyers - we've already bumped Peng from .3 to .39! That he likes math puzzl…
Either way, the article's explanation for that particular question is wrong.
The engineer/lawyer problem explanation (spoilers) is only correct in a world where lawyers and engineers have all the same characteristics. That the sampled individual is a man will skew things all by itself. Of the lawyers, approximately 40% will be women, whereas only 11% of the engineers. So our samplee could be one of 27 engineers or 42 lawyers - we've already bumped Peng from .3 to .39! That he likes math puzzl…
The author of this quiz seems to have completely misunderstood the relevant research. Either he has to assume that all individuals are identical (in which case, the little story is irrelevant) or he needs to apply Bayes rule according to the probabilities associated with the factors expressed in the personality exposition. Either way, the article's explanation for that particular question is wrong.
"Dick is a 30-year-old man. He is married with no children. A man of high ability and high motivation, he promises to be quite successful in his field. He is well liked by his colleagues.
This description was intended to convey no information relevant to the question of whether Dick is an engineer or a lawyer."
The description in the quiz is very different.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand the point of the second question. Does the answer mean to state authoritatively that that engineers are no more likely to do carpentry and partake in recreational mathematics than lawyers, or is there another explanation? If it were changed to something like "2. A team of psychologists performed personality tests on 100 professionals, of which 50 were engineers and 50 were nurses.…
"A team of psychologists performed personality tests on 100 professionals, of which 5 were engineers and 95 were lawyers. Brief descriptions were written for each subject. The following is a randomly picked sample of one of the resulting descriptions: 'Jack is a 45-year old man who enjoys recreational Mathematics.' Assume 90% of engineers enjoy recreational Mathematics and only 10% of lawyers do. What is the chance that Jack is an engineer?"
And the point is that the odds are still that Jack is a lawyer. The question as posed in the article, though, really doesn't make sense.
I didn't much like this: " being swayed by the way in which questions are worded rather than responding just to their substance " (for the lost ticket being allegedly equivalent to $10). Is a ticket, which costs $10, emotionally equivalent to $10? Once bought, the ticket is unique in my eyes, whereas I'm not even sure how many $10 bills I have in my wallet even now. So if I lose one, well, maybe it wasn't there in th…
You would be correct if there were not other tickets available; in that case, the ticket truly is unique. But in the example given you could acquire another one. In that case the ticket is not unique and is equivalent to the cost of acquiring another one, which is $10.
I recently read Kahneman's 2011 book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" -- it should probably be required reading for everybody who's in charge of making decisions that affect a lot of people.
Kahneman has spent decades investigating biases and cognitive error. And it turns out he's not all that bad at popularising his and related research.
Of particular fascination (and frustration!) are the little examples he liberally sprinkles throughout the book. Small quizzes, questions and the like for the reader to try. Try as I might, I have consistently "failed" these in the way Kahneman goes on to explain.
He even explains why he does that: because it's hard to particularise from the general. It's easy to generalise from the particular.
I've found that many dimly held intuitions I've developed over the years about "how the world works" are starkly illustrated in the book. And many things I believed were not borne out be research.
Bottom line: it's a great book and very illuminating. Read it.
I don't understand the title? Why does it matter either way if someone fails or gets it right?
The title assumes they would hate to be proven wrong, but makes sense.
I didn't much like this: " being swayed by the way in which questions are worded rather than responding just to their substance " (for the lost ticket being allegedly equivalent to $10). Is a ticket, which costs $10, emotionally equivalent to $10? Once bought, the ticket is unique in my eyes, whereas I'm not even sure how many $10 bills I have in my wallet even now. So if I lose one, well, maybe it wasn't there in th…
"As you enter the theater, you discover that you have lost the ticket. The theater keeps no record of ticket purchasers, so the ticket cannot be recovered."
Over thinking it I guess...
I didn't much like this: " being swayed by the way in which questions are worded rather than responding just to their substance " (for the lost ticket being allegedly equivalent to $10). Is a ticket, which costs $10, emotionally equivalent to $10? Once bought, the ticket is unique in my eyes, whereas I'm not even sure how many $10 bills I have in my wallet even now. So if I lose one, well, maybe it wasn't there in th…