Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe paganel is referring exactly to the "sub-optimal decision" part, in the explanation (not the questions themselves). And yes, this quiz seems a load of underspecified cargo-cult horsecrap. I surely hope the original research was of higher quality.
I believe paganel is referring exactly to the "sub-optimal decision" part, in the explanation (not the questions themselves). Can you expand on that? The point of the article is that people will (statistically) get the questions wrong, or at least have biases in their responses. For example, in the first question the grandparent poster may well have had good reasons to answer as they did, but that doesn't discount th…
What I meant (and what I believe paganel meant) is not that most people won't get such questions wrong, statistically. They probably will, and the original research probably shows that conclusively.
It's the part of this quiz/post that is supposed to explain why that irks scientifically inclined folks (as manifested many times in this thread :) Here the author missed crucial bits that made the question+explanation originally work, and all that's left is some well-meaning cargo cult nonsense.
Whether it appeared in a sidebar or not is no excuse for getting it wrong imo -- they could have stuck with the original questions if they didn't understand the implications of modifying their premises.