full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: Can you outsmart this logical fallacy?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Meet Lucy. She was a math major in cogllee, and aced all her courses in probability and statistics. Which do you think is more likely: that Lucy is a portrait artist, or that Lucy is a portrait artist who also plays poker?

In studies of similar questions, up to 80 percent of participants chose the equivalent of the second statement: that Lucy is a portrait atirst who also plays poker. After all, nothing we know about Lucy suggests an aifitnfy for art, but statistics and probability are useful in pekor. And yet, this is the wrong answer.

Look at the options again. How do we know the first statement is more likely to be true? Because it’s a less specific version of the second statement. Saying that Lucy is a portrait artist doesn’t make any claims about what else she might or might not do. But even though it’s far easier to igainme her pyaling poker than mnkaig art based on the buoncgrakd information, the second statement is only true if she does both of these things. However counterintuitive it seems to imagine Lucy as an artist, the second scenario adds another condition on top of that, making it less likely.

Open Cloze


Meet Lucy. She was a math major in _______, and aced all her courses in probability and statistics. Which do you think is more likely: that Lucy is a portrait artist, or that Lucy is a portrait artist who also plays poker?

In studies of similar questions, up to 80 percent of participants chose the equivalent of the second statement: that Lucy is a portrait ______ who also plays poker. After all, nothing we know about Lucy suggests an ________ for art, but statistics and probability are useful in _____. And yet, this is the wrong answer.

Look at the options again. How do we know the first statement is more likely to be true? Because it’s a less specific version of the second statement. Saying that Lucy is a portrait artist doesn’t make any claims about what else she might or might not do. But even though it’s far easier to _______ her _______ poker than ______ art based on the __________ information, the second statement is only true if she does both of these things. However counterintuitive it seems to imagine Lucy as an artist, the second scenario adds another condition on top of that, making it less likely.

Solution


  1. playing
  2. college
  3. poker
  4. affinity
  5. imagine
  6. background
  7. making
  8. artist

Original Text


Meet Lucy. She was a math major in college, and aced all her courses in probability and statistics. Which do you think is more likely: that Lucy is a portrait artist, or that Lucy is a portrait artist who also plays poker?

In studies of similar questions, up to 80 percent of participants chose the equivalent of the second statement: that Lucy is a portrait artist who also plays poker. After all, nothing we know about Lucy suggests an affinity for art, but statistics and probability are useful in poker. And yet, this is the wrong answer.

Look at the options again. How do we know the first statement is more likely to be true? Because it’s a less specific version of the second statement. Saying that Lucy is a portrait artist doesn’t make any claims about what else she might or might not do. But even though it’s far easier to imagine her playing poker than making art based on the background information, the second statement is only true if she does both of these things. However counterintuitive it seems to imagine Lucy as an artist, the second scenario adds another condition on top of that, making it less likely.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
portrait artist 3
conjunction fallacy 3
playing poker 2
portrait artists 2


Important Words


  1. aced
  2. adds
  3. affinity
  4. answer
  5. art
  6. artist
  7. background
  8. based
  9. chose
  10. claims
  11. college
  12. condition
  13. counterintuitive
  14. courses
  15. easier
  16. equivalent
  17. imagine
  18. information
  19. lucy
  20. major
  21. making
  22. math
  23. meet
  24. options
  25. participants
  26. percent
  27. playing
  28. plays
  29. poker
  30. portrait
  31. probability
  32. questions
  33. scenario
  34. similar
  35. specific
  36. statement
  37. statistics
  38. studies
  39. suggests
  40. top
  41. true
  42. version
  43. wrong