Comments on: Mind Teaser: Consider Linda

by: Flo

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:57:19 +0000

The answer is (a). Linda is a bank teller "today". She was an activist when she was a student. Do I know if she is still an activist today? Nope.

by: Alvaro

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:49:37 +0000

dwindle, not a very accurate analogy...

Do you think he'd more likely be a truck driver, or a truck driver who listens to Mozart all the time while mentally composing haikus?

or,

Do you think he'd be more likely to be an Ivy League professor, or an Ivy League professor who attends classical music performances every week?

by: dwindle

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:34:40 +0000

I remember one about a small older man who likes poetry and classical piano. Ivy League professor or truck driver? Well, obviously a truck driver, because they outnumber Ivy League professor several times over.

by: Richard McLaughlin

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:46:27 +0000

I thought different from others, why would a bank teller and be active in the feminist movement. Does one exclude the other.

David Osborne probably described it best for me.

by: Andy Manjuck

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:02:46 +0000

Perhaps people taking the survey associated the idea of feminism with being quizzed on being a "progressive" thinker and caught onto it like a buzz word. No longer does it become a question of AND/OR logic... no it just becomes a culture quite aware of how often it's testing its ever-changing view on the ethical nature of the world.

by: Alvaro

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:54:46 +0000

Paul, it´s not me disagreeing with you, it is mathematics/ probability 101. As discussed above, we may be misled by language and our automatic assumptions, but that is precisely why this little teaser is eye-opening.

Once we are told that she is a banker, the probability of her being a banker: 100%

Probability she is, adittionally, active in the feminist movement: you pick. Perhaps 10%? 80%? in any case, it will be less than 100%, otherwise you are assuming it is impossible that she may have chosen not to be active in the feminist movement.

by: Paul Dundon

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:28:38 +0000

The claim that Linda is more likely to be a banker than a banker and a feminist is just unsubstantiated. Prima facie, an individual is more likely to be a member of a larger group than a smaller one, but that isn't the judgement we are being asked to make. We're given quite a lot of information about Linda's political views and asked to decide whether she is an active feminist.

It's more likely, prima facie, that I'm American than it is that I'm British, because there are more Americans than there are British. But if I say I live in the UK, think the Queen is great and call French Fries "chips" you would be foolish to say it wasn't more likely I was British, despite the prior likelihood. In the same way, the fact that there are fewer feminist bankers than bankers is simply not the issue in Linda's case.

by: Non

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:26:00 +0000

Devin: You think people assumed the options were: "bank teller and NOT IN the feminist movement" OR "bank teller and IN the feminist movement".

So people choose the second because OBVIOUSLY, the majority of the bank tellers of the world are feminists?

This is your argument to say that people are not stupid, it was just confusing language?

by: Devin

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:51:10 +0000

I'm back!

Alvaro: I believe that language is the problem. We do have the ability to interpret language, but we interpret it in a way that works most of the time. As I said, the heuristic I identified works most of the time with most normal communication.

The fact that the solution would be obvious if represented using another form of communication (perhaps a Venn diagram) means that the form of the question is the reason for the confusion, and not the logic itself. We simply don't expect people to communicate in English the way this question is asked, and this is a reasonable expectation. Any ordinary English speaker would make the same conclusion about the apples and bananas.

The following XKCD comic sums up my view about this question:

http://xkcd.com/169/

by: sumanth

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:03:11 +0000

Davis:
well, your logic would be apt if second choice was 'banker' OR 'feminist' than 'banker' AND 'feminist'.