Wednesday Wisdom (December 4, 2019)


I. Same problem, different context

People’s understanding of probability does not translate into their behavior. 

For Example:

  • A statistician may purchase lottery tickets after crunching irrational odds all day
  • A doctor may smoke cigarettes outside the lung-cancer hospital in which they work
  • A financial planner may over-draw their checking account

We are all, in a way, unable to recognize the same idea when it is presented to us in a different context. 

Which idea are you following in one domain, but completely blind to in another?