Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Monty

2021-10-06 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
Monty
Votey panel for Monty
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

One person tells another: "Also, did you know that if you flip three coins three times, the fourth flip HAS to be heads?" The other person, wide-eyed, responds: "No it... well... I... okay MAYBE."

Below, a caption reads: "Life tip: The moment after a nerd first learns the answer to the Monty Hall Problem, you can convince them of anything."

The Monty Hall Problem is a famous probability puzzle (based on the game show "Let's Make a Deal") where the correct answer -- that you should always switch doors -- is deeply counterintuitive. When people first learn the solution, it shakes their confidence in their own probabilistic intuition. The joke is that immediately after this experience of having their intuition proven spectacularly wrong, a person becomes temporarily vulnerable to believing any counterintuitive probability claim, no matter how absurd. The coin-flip claim in the comic is obviously false (each flip is independent), but someone who just had their probabilistic worldview shattered might hesitate to trust their instincts. It's a sharp observation about how intellectual humility, taken to an extreme, can make you gullible.

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