"Being Wrong — Adventures in the Margin of Error"; wonderful 2010 book reviewed here by Dan Gilbert: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/books/review/Gilbert-t.ht...
How to Be Wrong (2016)
31–35 of 35 posts
Re: How to Be Wrong (2016)
#32Oh man, I'm always glad to hear I'm not the only one who got the Monty Hall problem wrong. Here is my embarrassing MH story. Like Paul Erdős, I resorted to experimentation. Very much unlike Paul Erdős the computer program I wrote contained a one-off error in its PRNG that coincidentally confirmed the wrong result. I then spent a day or so on Usenet insisting stubbornly on the wrong solution until some very kind perso…
> Lesson: If a bunch of smart and educated people tell you that you're wrong, then you're probably wrong. Not always the case. As they say, science advances one funeral (of smart and educated people) at a time...
There will always be exceptions, hence the "probably" in their lesson. There's paradigm shifts, and then there's an unnoticed bug in code hacked together to prove something to oneself.
Re: How to Be Wrong (2016)
#33As a CS university lecturer, I acknowledge that there is little room for exploration, and the chance of being wrong, in most assessment schemes. Any mistake loses points and lowers the GPA, so nobody likes to make mistakes, however creative and interesting. Shame. The system cannot be easily revised because the students themselves oppose it. To them it seems intuitively unfair that somehow those who make mistakes may…
At my university (UK) only final exams count, and everything before then (such as problem sets) are marked/graded only for feedback, which is a nice middle ground. Requires students motivated enough to submit work that won't count.
Re: How to Be Wrong (2016)
#34Oh man, I'm always glad to hear I'm not the only one who got the Monty Hall problem wrong. Here is my embarrassing MH story. Like Paul Erdős, I resorted to experimentation. Very much unlike Paul Erdős the computer program I wrote contained a one-off error in its PRNG that coincidentally confirmed the wrong result. I then spent a day or so on Usenet insisting stubbornly on the wrong solution until some very kind perso…
I will probably continue to get the Monty Hall problem wrong for the foreseeable future despite understanding the logic. I think the issue with it for me is the difference between probability and calculated probability (which I do not think is a proper mathematical term).
Like...when someone makes reference to a given probability X "changing" from ~33% to ~67%, they are referring to the updated model that we use to calculate the probability. Nothing in reality has changed, but rather the model has.
Re: How to Be Wrong (2016)
#35Such a great read.
>I tell my students that, in the first place, they need to get over the fear of making mistakes.
>So my answer to the question “How to be wrong?” is: “Early and often!”
>And if you can’t be genuinely modest, fake it. Develop a habit of always acting in such a way that if you prove to be wrong, it won’t make you look really really bad.
>certain truths may be denied to us unless we pass through a preparatory stage of error.
>For now, I’ll skip ahead to the moral: Sometimes, when you find the right hole, you shouldn’t just put one foot into it. You should jump in with both feet the way Alice did, and see what kind of wonderland it leads to.