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The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

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Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#81

Post by malbertife »

tikhonj wrote: post #33
colanderman wrote: post #23

The questions involving "90% chance of $1000 or 100% chance of $900" always bother me. I never understand why economists think that a rational actor would consider them equivalent; they're not , unless you are making that choice many many times. But if I'm given that chance once (which is presumably what most participants assume, since that's not a choice that comes up often in one's life), it's really then a choice…

My AI professor had a great explanation for this: * lottery B = $900 * lottery A = 0.9 chance of $1000 and 0.1 chance of 0 + feeling stupid.

Isn't

* lottery A = 0.9 chance of $1000 + feeling somewhat smart and 0.1 chance of 0 + feeling very stupid

more accurate?

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#82

Post by burgerbrain »

nl wrote: post #4

And here's the reason why people who say economics isn't science are (mostly) wrong: economics is (mostly) applied statistics. Yes, interpretation of the statistics isn't "just science", but when is it ever?

Excuse my ignorance, but what does the scientific method have to do with statistics?

I have always considered it to be a math, not science.

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#83

Post by nl »

burgerbrain wrote: post #82
nl wrote: post #4

And here's the reason why people who say economics isn't science are (mostly) wrong: economics is (mostly) applied statistics. Yes, interpretation of the statistics isn't "just science", but when is it ever?

Excuse my ignorance, but what does the scientific method have to do with statistics? I have always considered it to be a math, not science.

I regard Math as a Science, although I do understand the controversy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_scie... is a pretty good summary.

(Although if economics is Math then that is even better: economics is something that can make predictions, and isn't just the black magic that some seem to think)

The scientific method applies is deciding what statistical experiments to do.

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#84

Post by ubernostrum »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #6

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…

I'm just gonna quote what I said when this was on Metafilter a few months back:

"Anyway, yes, the fundamental problem in these questions is not how people think -- it's that the question they want the respondent to think they're asking, and the question they claim they're actually asking, are two different things.

The lawyer/engineer one is a classic example of this; what they hope is that you will read it as "how likely is it that these personality traits correlate to an engineer", so that they can then swoop in and say "what we were really asking is the mathematical definition of a percentage!"

Which ultimately tells us very little about the respondents and quite a bit about the people conducting the quiz..."

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#85

Post by Too »

colanderman wrote: post #23

The questions involving "90% chance of $1000 or 100% chance of $900" always bother me. I never understand why economists think that a rational actor would consider them equivalent; they're not , unless you are making that choice many many times. But if I'm given that chance once (which is presumably what most participants assume, since that's not a choice that comes up often in one's life), it's really then a choice…

The importance is the order and context of the questions, both questions basically equates to a: Would you gamble with $1000 and b: Would you gamble with $100.

If only given question b and some time to think you would probably answer no (depending on your risk-preference). But because of question a, the amount and probability in question b seems insignificant which decreases your risk-averseness.

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#86

Post by prof_hobart »

bfung wrote: post #69
Uhhrrr wrote: post #6

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…

30 engineers, 70 lawyers, the probability of being an engineer is 30%. What Jack likes to do is irrelevant. Why can't a lawyer like math and dislike politics (winning a case framed by certain rules is just a puzzle/game to hack)?

It's not that a lawyer can't like maths or dislike politics. The issue is whether they are less likely to on average. From my personal experience of knowing several of both groups, I would say that on average the lawyers I know are less interested in maths than the engineers and more interested in politics than them. It doesn't apply universally (some of the engineers I know are obsessed by politics, just not all of them and not as many of them as lawyers). It's possible that there may be research that demonstrates this doesn't hold when you look at the sum total of lawyers and engineers, but that's not what the author is trying to rely on.

Assuming that there is a skew of preferences, then this info isn't irrelevant you can perfectly reasonably use this to help identify the likelihood of this person being in one group or another. It doesn't guarantee that you're right, but it will improve your chances.

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#88

Post by nevinera »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #6

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…

It's worse than that - the probability is biased as you say if the sample were chosen randomly, but they did not claim that.

Given that the only distinguishing characteristic mentioned is a boolean (engineer or lawyer), and that they only chose one sample, the probability might just as well be 50% - the probability of the person picking the sample deciding one way or the other.

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#89

Post by berdario »

What does "How many dates did you have last month?" even means?

Maybe I've a different notion of "date" from the rest of the people... but I'd assume that if you've a stable relationship with a significant other, then your number could be definitely higher than 5 in a month...

otherwise, if it's considering all the different dates with all potential partners, 3 to 5 seems an number exceptionally high (in fact: I've got a grand total of 0 dates over the last 24 months, and I'm quite sad about that)

Re: The quiz Daniel Kahneman wants you to fail

#90

Post by JulianMorrison »

paganel wrote: post #66

Sorry to say it, but this certainly smells like cargo-cult science. First, I'm not a scientist, and not even a Nobel-prize winner, but for example I cannot understand what question 3) has to do with "science". I did have 2 dates in the past month, but I'm at one of the lowest points of my life, because, guess what? the missing context really matters (I'm about to get divorced). The same goes for question 4) . I chose…

Ah, the silliness heuristic.
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