Re: Not knowing how to look can make it hard to find
It's as if they still living in the Dark Ages, before statistical science was discovered.
A surprisingly large number of people still fall for Gambler's Fallacy, but even those who don't are often guilty of faulty reasoning and imprecision.
For example, given the premise:
"if I toss this coin five times and get 'heads' every time, what is the sixth toss likely to produce?"
... the 'enlightened' person may answer that the sixth toss has a 50:50 probability whereas the gambler's fallacy predicts that it is time for "tails". They're both wrong. There is only a 3.125% chance of tossing "heads" five times with a fair coin so the balance of probability is that the coin is loaded or some other trickery is at work. That means the likely outcome is either "heads" again or else the answer will dictate the outcome by causing the tosser (oooh, err) to alter his technique.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
