Cognitive Biases

Discussion in 'BS Forum' started by xxedge72x, Apr 23, 2018.

  1. jetophile

    jetophile Bruce Coslet's Daughter

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    I thought I read somewhere recently that some female Scientist came up with some kind of system and that she won the lottery three times? Maybe I dreamt it, but I'll try to find it. Thanks for your input, statjeff22. You must have one big forehead to store all of that analytical info in your noggin. Unlike Peyton Manning, who just looks slow. Kidding aside, having a big forehead in ancient times was seen as a physical asset. People thought you had every piece of poetry, rhetoric, and math equation in the world in there.

    I admire Scientists and Math folks so much. I suck at both, but I left out Chemistry. Equal suck: 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Did I do that right? Probably not. Math really is an art, and you can be so creative in Math, people just don't get that. I am in awe of how some people's brains click. I'm lucky if I can figure out why Shoprite shorted me a $1.00 on Skippy peanut butter no matter how many times I read the receipt. :/ A friend of mine became a Dr. of Nuclear Particle Physics at 26. He went to school for free (even though his family was upper middle class) because he is THAT freaking smart. The Dept. of Defense, that was the catch. When he graduated, he said no. They weren't happy. He used to send me emails, "Here's an equation I wrote". I had no clue what I was looking at, it just looked like a bunch of ancient Greek and Russian with a bunch of symbols thrown in. Then there was the time when radioactive frogs escaped the lab. He has three different PHDs. He's an Oncologist now.

    Math, Numbers, and Genius Bias. Brains over looks any day of the week. But he's also good looking. ; )
     
    #21 jetophile, Apr 25, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2018
  2. statjeff22

    statjeff22 2008 Green Guy "Most Knowledgeable" Award Winner

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    Anyone who claims that they have a system that can predict which lottery numbers are going to come up is a liar and a scam artist. Period. This is obvious if you just think about what they're saying - they're claiming that ping pong balls can somehow remember what they did the day or week or month or year before, and "correct themselves" accordingly. Those are some smart ping pong balls, eh? Unless there is something wrong with the process itself (there was a case in Pennsylvania where insiders tampered with the balls to make some more likely than others) each draw is independent of every other draw, and each ball has the same probability of coming up as any other ball, and it is impossible to systematically "beat" the lottery. It's also impossible to systematically beat the casino at roulette or craps or slot machines, for exactly the same reason. Which is why casinos have those games, and why states run lotteries.

    As an aside, most doctoral students don't pay tuition to go to school, and many (virtually all students in the sciences) also get paid in the form of assistantships and fellowships. This is why universities view doctoral programs as a necessary evil (they're expensive, but are indispensable to doing research), accept undergraduate programs as the engine of the business (most schools break even on undergrads, since they require far more in services than do grad students), but absolutely adore masters programs (most students pay full freight and their marginal cost tends to be relatively small).
     
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  3. jetophile

    jetophile Bruce Coslet's Daughter

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    A Professor! I hope you're not tenured! Some of those tenured people are crazy! How do you stand it! How do you teach numbers in the first place, even though the history of numbers is so amazingly cool! You're probably based on that Hal Holbrook character from 'Creepshow'! Sheep's eyes and piggy friends! Your students, there they are, sitting there! Sitting there! Breathing. Day after day, year after year! Go on permanent Sabbatical, you idiot!

    Signed,
    -Mrs. championjets69 :mad:
     
    #23 jetophile, Apr 25, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2018
  4. jetophile

    jetophile Bruce Coslet's Daughter

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    I'm sure there are plenty of people on here with 'The Endowment Effect'. As such, 'The tendency for people to ascribe more value to things merely because they already own/have them.' ==> "I know our PSLs cost a fortune at $25,000 per, but we just can't throw them away." Yes, yes, you can. Wake up and admit what you've done. It was a godawful decision to buy in. Denial is a hell of a drug.
     
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