in hand. A woman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, responds to her husband's hankering for an expensive experimental airplane kit, Sure, honey, go ahead and splurge "when you win the lottery," just as her father had won the state's $2.7 million Megabucks jackpot a dozen years earlier; her husband takes the suggestion seriously and scores a $2.5 million
Megabucks prize himself. Or officials for a large multistate Powerball lottery drawing become suspicious when 110 players scattered among the 29 participating states come in to claim second-place prizes, rather than the 4 or 5 such winners expected from the drawing. But each of the 110 petitioners had guessed 5 out of the 6 Powerball numbers correctly, and each was entitled to anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 apiece, depending on the initial bet. Behind the startling outbreak of good fortune was a fortune cookie. All the second-place winners had based their choice on the 6 digits they'd seen on the little slip of paper tucked inside a Chinese fortune cookie, a fortune that, like the cellophane-wrapped bill brightener that held it, had been produced in bulk at the Wonton Food factory in New York.
Most of us are not accustomed to a probabilistic mindset, and instead approach life with a personalized blend of sensations, convictions, desires, and intuitions. Our gut is certainly a significant piece of property. The gastrointestinal tract measures about thirty feet from throat to rump and accounts for 10 to 15 percent of one's body weightâbut its physical dimensions are nothing compared to its metaphoric value, as the source of our cherished "instincts." We meet new people, we size them up and get a "gut feel" for what they're like, and we contrast them with others in our acquaintance until we find the closest fit. Ah, now we've got them sussed, trussed, and mounted. Now we can safely nap. If our gut instinct happens to clash with logic, probability, or evidence, guess which claimant wins?
Jonathan Koehler of the University of Texas admits that he is not always a popular guest at a wedding. He sits at the ceremony and listens to the giddy couple exchange vows of permanent devotion, passion, and respect. He hears the toasts attesting to the unmistakable rightness of the match, how anybody who knows this man and this woman could tell from the start that the union was "meant to be" and is "like no other," and he thinks, Hmm, I've been to four weddings in the past year. Who's it going to be, then: Zack and Jenny? Sam and Brianna? Brad and Briana? Or Adam and Hermione, now lip-locked so protractedly before me? Which two of these four pairs of besotted newlyweds will end up carrying botulinum-tipped spears into divorce court ten years hence? After all, minor fluctuations notwithstanding, the American divorce rate has been remarkably stable at 50 percent for nearly half a century.
Koehler is friendly and chatty and sometimes shares his musings with other wedding guests. They look at him as though he had belched, or speculated on the correlation between the size of the bride's brassiere and that of the groom's paycheck.
"They find it repugnant to talk statistics at a wedding," he said. "They want to know how I can say such a thing. Why, you don't know anything about this couple! Just look at how happy they are, how deeply in love, how overjoyed their families are. True enoughâbut I know general frequency statistics. I also know that every couple gets married with kisses and toasts and high hopes, so these details shouldn't affect the probabilities we assign to them. Until you tell me something outside the norm, something diagnostic that has been shown to affect one's probability of divorceâfor example, both partners being over the age of thirty-five, which is known to lower the probability of divorceâI'll assume the normal statistical risk applies." Koehler, who has the slight build and dark, floppy hair of Michael J. Fox, insists he's not a "cynical, bitter little man" or
Megabucks prize himself. Or officials for a large multistate Powerball lottery drawing become suspicious when 110 players scattered among the 29 participating states come in to claim second-place prizes, rather than the 4 or 5 such winners expected from the drawing. But each of the 110 petitioners had guessed 5 out of the 6 Powerball numbers correctly, and each was entitled to anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 apiece, depending on the initial bet. Behind the startling outbreak of good fortune was a fortune cookie. All the second-place winners had based their choice on the 6 digits they'd seen on the little slip of paper tucked inside a Chinese fortune cookie, a fortune that, like the cellophane-wrapped bill brightener that held it, had been produced in bulk at the Wonton Food factory in New York.
Most of us are not accustomed to a probabilistic mindset, and instead approach life with a personalized blend of sensations, convictions, desires, and intuitions. Our gut is certainly a significant piece of property. The gastrointestinal tract measures about thirty feet from throat to rump and accounts for 10 to 15 percent of one's body weightâbut its physical dimensions are nothing compared to its metaphoric value, as the source of our cherished "instincts." We meet new people, we size them up and get a "gut feel" for what they're like, and we contrast them with others in our acquaintance until we find the closest fit. Ah, now we've got them sussed, trussed, and mounted. Now we can safely nap. If our gut instinct happens to clash with logic, probability, or evidence, guess which claimant wins?
Jonathan Koehler of the University of Texas admits that he is not always a popular guest at a wedding. He sits at the ceremony and listens to the giddy couple exchange vows of permanent devotion, passion, and respect. He hears the toasts attesting to the unmistakable rightness of the match, how anybody who knows this man and this woman could tell from the start that the union was "meant to be" and is "like no other," and he thinks, Hmm, I've been to four weddings in the past year. Who's it going to be, then: Zack and Jenny? Sam and Brianna? Brad and Briana? Or Adam and Hermione, now lip-locked so protractedly before me? Which two of these four pairs of besotted newlyweds will end up carrying botulinum-tipped spears into divorce court ten years hence? After all, minor fluctuations notwithstanding, the American divorce rate has been remarkably stable at 50 percent for nearly half a century.
Koehler is friendly and chatty and sometimes shares his musings with other wedding guests. They look at him as though he had belched, or speculated on the correlation between the size of the bride's brassiere and that of the groom's paycheck.
"They find it repugnant to talk statistics at a wedding," he said. "They want to know how I can say such a thing. Why, you don't know anything about this couple! Just look at how happy they are, how deeply in love, how overjoyed their families are. True enoughâbut I know general frequency statistics. I also know that every couple gets married with kisses and toasts and high hopes, so these details shouldn't affect the probabilities we assign to them. Until you tell me something outside the norm, something diagnostic that has been shown to affect one's probability of divorceâfor example, both partners being over the age of thirty-five, which is known to lower the probability of divorceâI'll assume the normal statistical risk applies." Koehler, who has the slight build and dark, floppy hair of Michael J. Fox, insists he's not a "cynical, bitter little man" or
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