{"id":1994,"date":"2008-04-08T17:13:11","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T17:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2008\/04\/08\/lets-make-a-deal\/"},"modified":"2008-04-08T17:13:11","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T17:13:11","slug":"lets-make-a-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/08\/lets-make-a-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s Make a Deal!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know what the Monty Hall effect is?  Let me explain.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/472\/files\/2012\/04\/i-330e35bb744d99a597c417fdc3a09ce7-montyhead.jpg?w=604\" alt=\"i-330e35bb744d99a597c417fdc3a09ce7-montyhead.jpg\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>OK, I&#8217;m Monty Hall and you are a hapless game show guest.  I show you three doors and tell you that behind one door is a nice brand new car, and behind each of the other two doors is a goat.You get to pick one of the door.  Say you pick Door Number 1.Now, I have my lovely assistant Gwenda (assume her name is Gwenda) open Door Number 3 to show you that there is a goat behind Door # 3.  I give you the option:  Are you going to stick with Door Number 1, or are you going to switch to the only remaining unopened door?Statistically, scientifically, what is the correct answer to this question?  Obviously, the probability that the car was behind the door you chose has not changed, so you should not change your mind without any other information, right?<!--more--><em><strong>BBBBZZZZTTT  <\/strong><\/em>Nope, you would have gotten that wrong.  In a sense, the probability that the car is behind the door you picked has not changed (or at least you can think of it that way if you like), but the probability that the car is behind the still closed door has gone way up.  And, this means you should switch every time.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/04\/08\/science\/08monty.html\">Here<\/a> is a place to go to actually play the Monte Hall game several times and see which strategy actually gets you more cars.<a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/evolutionblog\/2008\/04\/monty_hall_in_the_news.php\">Here <\/a>is a post on the Evolution Blog that reports on a number of very interesting findings that link Monte Hall, the Goat and some Monkeys.  Oh, and some M&#038;M&#8217;s &#8230;  Enjoy. By the way, there is yet another strategy for this particular game, with the car and the goats:  Prefer goats.  You&#8217;ll win way more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know what the Monty Hall effect is? Let me explain.OK, I&#8217;m Monty Hall and you are a hapless game show guest. I show you three doors and tell you that behind one door is a nice brand new car, and behind each of the other two doors is a goat.You get to pick &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/08\/lets-make-a-deal\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let&#8217;s Make a Deal!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[162],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-wa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}