Report Why Smart People Are Stupid.

[tom_mai78101]

Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.)

For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this and analyzing our answers. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents—reason was our Promethean gift—Kahneman and his scientific partner, the late Amos Tversky, demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe.

When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. Asked about the bat and the ball, we forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort.

Why Smart People Are Stupid

Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

www.newyorker.com

 

[Darthfett]

The example given isn't the best, if this is examples of where people typically guess blindly. A better example is the Monty Hall game:

The player must choose between three doors, one of which contains a car, the other two containing goats. Once the player chooses, one of the two remaining doors is opened to reveal a goat. The player is then left with two closed doors, and is offered the choice to stay with the original door, or switch doors. In order to maximize his chances of winning the car, what should he do?:

A. Stay with the original door. B. Switch doors. C. No difference.

The answer is counter-intuitive (and explained best in the link I gave).

 

[tom_mai78101]

That Monty Hall problem have been htalked about in my Probability class, and actually had my professor talked about it for 1 whole lecture. There goes my week.

 

[Mabaet.Baet]

I encountered a question like this in a game called 'Professor Layton'. And I was like... wtf?

Hey guys... lemme challenge u answer this puzzle. Please do not cheat via google etc

1. "If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?"

2. A mouse makes birth of 4 another baby mouse every 3 months. A mouse start making birth when it's in 2nd month old. If Sally bought a mouse and have it for 10 months... how many mouse will she have now.

 

[Accname]

Both questions do not provide enough information.
1). For example, do we know that each machine does only make a single widget?
Maybe you need at least 5 machines to make them start working, and then they make 5 widgets.
Like, every 5 machines you have, you get 5 widgets in 5 minutes time.

But of course the answer you want to get is 5 minutes.

2). You cannot tell, maybe the mouse died by then. Maybe it never got pregnant at all.

 

[Mabaet.Baet]

Both questions do not provide enough information.
1). For example, do we know that each machine does only make a single widget?
Maybe you need at least 5 machines to make them start working, and then they make 5 widgets.
Like, every 5 machines you have, you get 5 widgets in 5 minutes time.

But of course the answer you want to get is 5 minutes.

2). You cannot tell, maybe the mouse died by then. Maybe it never got pregnant at all.

Dying is not involved in the puzzle.

At the end the mouse is still 1 because Sally only bought a mouse (1). It cannot give birth by itself.

both #1,2 solved! Awesome u :3

 

[tom_mai78101]

Yeah, Professor Layton. It's an awesome puzzle game.

 

[FireCat]

Eh? Okay

 

[Fatmankev]

The example given isn't the best, if this is examples of where people typically guess blindly. A better example is the Monty Hall game:

The player must choose between three doors, one of which contains a car, the other two containing goats. Once the player chooses, one of the two remaining doors is opened to reveal a goat. The player is then left with two closed doors, and is offered the choice to stay with the original door, or switch doors. In order to maximize his chances of winning the car, what should he do?:

A. Stay with the original door. B. Switch doors. C. No difference.

The answer is counter-intuitive (and explained best in the link I gave).

Actually, that's not a great example. You have to understand concepts of complex math to be able to deduce why you should switch to the other door. I don't understand variable change worth a damn, and that sort of problem is not at all what they're talking about. The problems they give all have simple answers that are easy to discover, as long as you read the problem and don't go with the auto-answer. Your problem requires a degree of knowledge in mathematics that a typical high school graduate wouldn't possess, because it's not taught in the standard curriculum. By that reasoning, it doesn't fit. These aren't questions where people guess blindly, they're questions where people have formed biases to help them solve simple dilemmas without expending brain power.

All that aside, it's still an interesting example that was a good thing to post on the page. Not trying to argue that. I just don't think it's a better example, is all.

 

[Darthfett]

Actually, that's not a great example. You have to understand concepts of complex math to be able to deduce why you should switch to the other door. I don't understand variable change worth a damn, and that sort of problem is not at all what they're talking about. The problems they give all have simple answers that are easy to discover, as long as you read the problem and don't go with the auto-answer. Your problem requires a degree of knowledge in mathematics that a typical high school graduate wouldn't possess, because it's not taught in the standard curriculum. By that reasoning, it doesn't fit. These aren't questions where people guess blindly, they're questions where people have formed biases to help them solve simple dilemmas without expending brain power.

All that aside, it's still an interesting example that was a good thing to post on the page. Not trying to argue that. I just don't think it's a better example, is all.

Probability is not complex math, most high schools teach it at around Sophomore year according to wikipedia.

A degree of knowledge is far from necessary, and you'll understand that if you watch this video;

 

[Fatmankev]

Fair enough, I stand corrected. Only heard a reference to it in that movie '21', and the guy explaining it in his university class was all card-counter status, so I figured it would be a difficult concept to comprehend. Never went about actually trying to, and it turns out you're definitely right. My bad.

 

[The Helper]

For Great Justice!