

Humans are Naturally Tone Deaf to Probabilities - MikeCapone
http://michaelgr.com/2008/10/30/most-people-are-tone-deaf-to-probabilities/

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lincolnq
I have consistently observed this and been frustrated at decision-makers for
making what looks like fear-driven rather than rational decisions.

I like this article because it gives a hypothesis that explains this. But how
do you educate people?

When I make cost-benefit analyses involving probabilities, an expected value
calculation is really important, and I don't think everyone knows how to do
it. So teaching that seems to be valuable. But when people don't have hard
probabilities to look at, as the author notes, they seem to overestimate risk.
That's something that can't be helped by teaching a formula - you have to
teach an intuition.

Strategic games have probably helped me develop this intuition. Starcraft and
the board game Puerto Rico both require you to continually estimate risks and
rewards of taking certain actions.

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mixmax
Yes, it's very frustrating to watch. I have a sneaky suspicion that
politicians, or at least their advisors, are well aware of the bare
statistical truth. But they can't take the counterintuitive but right stance
because they would alienate their voters who don't understand it.

This is one of the downsides of democracy.

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namnori
Well, you are definitely right about one thing: policy analysis is,
unfortunately, a task too exhaustive for the average American. Therefore, I
can definitely imagine a counterintuitive (but right) stance turning off
voters.

However, one thing that I have learned throughout this whole financial crisis
is that people do care. And regardless of whether or not the underlying
problem(s) are generally understood, the public wants solutions...and good
ones.

Political stances are always under a lot of scrutiny from the university
professors and media networks. So if the general public cannot analyze and
understand the full situation they will instead rely on and digest the
consensus of the intellectual community. I cannot see politicians (at least
smart ones) worrying about having their their voters understanding their
policies. They have bigger fish to fry. They have to be right, they have a
record to defend, and they want to carry on a political career that can only
advance with a record of retrospectively, good judgment. Matthew Arnold put it
best with, "The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next."

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gamble
Back in April, a number of papers were running a story on the Monty Hall
problem in primate research. The NYT ran a story with a detailed explanation
of how the problem works, and even provided a flash-animated demo so you could
work through it yourself.

Nonetheless, it was amusing to read the wild-eyed diatribes in the user
comments. You couldn't explain the problem in a clearer way, and yet plenty of
people simply refuse to accept a result that seems counterintuitive.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
After reading your comment, I immediately headed over to Wikipedia to refresh
my memory on the Monty Hall problem. The results of my search are a good
illustration of why I love the internet:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_hall_problem>

The article is nearly 6000 words and includes diagrams, detailed mathematical
explanations, a very detailed synopsis of the history of the problem, and
links to like 50 sources.

All for a probability puzzle. Unbelievable.

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sdurkin
I find it interesting that the best model we have for how the brain operates
is a Bayesian inference engine, but most people can't even apply proper
Bayesian reasoning.

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gaika
Log scale probabilities are a lot easier to grasp, but we still do not have a
unit name for them :(

