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0 pointsCrazyStat1y ago0 comments

> because it comes from a game show where he always reveals one wrong door.

Nope!

> Was Mr. Hall cheating? Not according to the rules of the show, because he did have the option of not offering the switch, and he usually did not offer it.

Emphasis added.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/21/us/behind-monty-hall-s-do...

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3 comments · 1 top-level

the_af1y ago· 2 in thread

This is about the only proper counter I've read so far. Why did it take so long to post?

This does indeed change the whole problem. I would argue that the problem as stated in vos Savant's column is different (and she says as much later on, "all other variations are different problems"), but I admit this makes me lose the supporting argument I've been using of "...and this is how Monty's game show worked". Point conceded.

I would also argue most people who objected to vos Savant's solution weren't considering Monty's strategy at all. They were objecting to the basic probabilities of the problem as stated by vos Savant, merely because they are counterintuitive (which can be summed up as "if you switch, you're betting you got the first guess of 1/3 wrong"), and everything else is an a posteriori rationalization.

CrazyStatOP1y ago

I posted exactly the same thing in a reply to you way earlier in the thread [1]. It didn't take so long to post, you just weren't paying attention.

> I would also argue most people who objected [etc. etc.]

I don't care about any of those people, the discussion was about Persi Diaconis.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43006185

the_af1y ago

> I posted exactly the same thing in a reply to you way earlier in the thread [1]. It didn't take so long to post, you just weren't paying attention.

I'm not asking why YOU took so long to respond or finding fault in your reasoning abilities, I'm saying there's been a lot of arguing in general in this sub-topic, and few people mentioned this fact -- which is the only relevant fact for challenging vos Savant's formulation of the problem (which matters because it's what sparked all this fuss).

> It didn't take so long to post, you just weren't paying attention.

This is the most dismissive possible thing to say, especially in response to a comment of mine where I'm conceding a point. I missed ONE other particular comment of yours, hence "I wasn't paying attention"? Wow. Sorry for not following your every response to everything.

> [...] the discussion was about Persi Diaconis.

I don't know nor care who Diaconis is, I just care about whether the Monty Hall problem truly was underspecified or not. This is about the Monty Hall problem, not about some person.

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