David: Card Tricks Led to This...

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The Monty Hall Problem

Actually, it started with Penn&Teller (actually, I think it started some point before that in my head with skepticism, but who cares at this point). That led to card tricks, card tricks led to three card monty, and that led to this article.

In case you're not up for a bit of light reading, this article states that if given the choice of 3 doors where 2 conceal a goat and 1 conceals a car a contestant can improve their odds of winning the car to 66% from 33% by switching to the other closed door after one of the doors has been opened and a goat has been revealed. This is supposed to seem crazy because it would appear to be a 50% chance at this point.

It's funny how long and detailed the explanation for this is when the it requires less than a paragraph to explain to anyone. Hell, it can pretty much be summed up easily in one (compound) sentence. The problem is the author focuses on the probability of the initial choice based on the car and not the goats.

After the initial choice, there is a 66% chance that you have picked a goat, and a switch from a goat given the circumstances will always result in a car.

It's not a busy day...

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