The problem as stated does not contain enough information to yield an answer. In order to come up with any reasonable answer, you must make some further assumptions. One possible assumption that you could make would be that Monty always opens a door. Another possible assumption would be that Monty opens a door if and only if the contestant was right on the first try. From the problem as stated, there is no reason to prefer one assumption over the other-- you need to decide which assumption to make for other reasons. Cecil based his decision (the second time) on reasonable ideas about the nature of a game show. If you want to state the problem where the answer is 2/3 chance of winning on switch, then you need to specify explicitly that the rules of the game require Mr. Hall to open a door.
So Boris, what do you ask the guard?
Dumbguy —> the answer to Boris’ riddle is:
“Guards, if I asked you yesterday which door I should go through, what would you have told me?”
In regards to the Monty hall question, Boris is absolutely correct. The way the actual statement was worded ALREADY MAKES the assumption that Monty will always open a door. And as Boris has already pointed out… Who says they want to win the car? We don’t know if they do, we just assume they do. Much like we assume, for the sake of the question, that Monty will always open a door. Cecil was PROVED WRONG, 100% WRONG.
gigi said:
Oh sure, bring that up.
I’ve seen it many times, and the example presented by Marilyn was typical of the show. When I first heard the puzzle, it was a Weekly Puzzler on the Car Talk radio show, in the mid-to-late 1980s, before either Marilyn or Cecil addressed the problem. I think back then, it could be assumed that someone old enough to address the puzzle would be old enough to have seen Let’s Make a Deal.
I was one of the people who wrote Cecil a letter in 1990 (e-mail not being common then) after his first brush-off answer, but I’ve since been converted. Not just by Cecil’s subsequent answers, but also by an e-mail dialog with someone I started talking to on alt.fan.cecil-adams, about Monty’s optimal strategy.
I agree that the puzzle is intended to get the answer 33:67, but now think that the answer 50:50 is better.
Curt, you have missed the point.
The answer to the riddle is:
Staying will result in a 1/3 chance of getting the major prize.
Swapping will result in a 2/3 chance of getting the major prize.
Boris and I are simply pointing out the fact that Cecil fails to admit he was proved wrong by one of his readers because the assumption had to be made that Monty would always open a door. But that assumption is a given. In the context of the way the question is worded, you automatically assume Monty will always open a door. Cecil was merely trying to protect his image by claiming that he wasn’t proved wrong, when we all know that, yes Cecil, I’m afraid you were.
Curt, you have missed the point.
The answer to the riddle is:
Staying will result in a 1/3 chance of getting the major prize.
Swapping will result in a 2/3 chance of getting the major prize.
Boris and I are simply pointing out the fact that Cecil fails to admit he was proved wrong by one of his readers because the assumption had to be made that Monty would always open a door. But that assumption is a given. In the context of the way the question is worded, you automatically assume Monty will always open a door. Cecil was merely trying to protect his image by claiming that he wasn’t proved wrong, when we all know that, yes Cecil, I’m afraid you were.
Hey, the question, “Guard, what door would you have told me to go through had I asked you yesterday” is a question I had never thought of, but it works.
My idea was, “What what door would your partner over their tell me to go through (i.e. which door leads to the palace interior rather than the dragon’s lair)?” By the way, I do think I glossed over one point in my original problem - each of the guards is known the world over for his consistent level of honesty (that way one guard knows what the other guard would say); the information is not known only to the player. This way, you know that exactly one lie has taken place, either the liar reversing what the truthful guy said, or the truthful guy faithfully repeating the lie. Then you just go through the other door.
DippyMonger’s answer works just as well (or better because the guards don’t have to know about each other), because in that guess, you know you are getting an even number of lies. (Well, it’s been argued that zero isn’t really an even number, but for my narrow little purposes I’ll call it that.) The liar reverses his own lie; the truthsayer is consistent. Go through the door they recommend.
This puzzle mimics the actions of some very simple logic gates - if you reverse something four times you get the very same something; if you reverse it three times you get the opposite. I brought it up because I’ve been frustrated before by people “playing badminton in the parking lot” of my “tennis game”. For example, you could assume that the lying guard’s intent was misdirection, rather than simple falsehood, and would thus second-guess any attempts to cancel out his lies, and tell the truth about his lie. One person I know (we were both in the sixth grade, if it helps), said his solution was to dig a tunnel between the two entrances and try to listen for dragon movements.
Anyway, I don’t think I can make any more headway on this thread. I do think Cecil admitted he was wrong, but I think he should have let the matter drop rather than criticizing the terse wording of the letter.
Triumph of the Straight Dope, Cecil’s latest and greatest offering (1999), includes, in Appendix #2, an “Online Interview of Ed Zotti by Bizarre Magazine, London, May 1998”, which includes the following:
Q. Has Cecil ever been forced to back down and admit to being wrong?
A. Cecil is genetically incapable of error. His assistants, however, occasionally screw up. The Monty Hall three doors fiasco, for example… that was me. Also, the sorry contretemps over “the exception proves the rule.” A few others I hope you’ve forgotten and certainly don’t plan to remind you of. After each such incident, well, let’s just say I know how the sorcerer’s apprentice felt.
I think you guys are taking this “Cecil knows everything and is never wrong” stuff way, way too seriously. Instead of taking it literally and then attempting to prove it wrong or right, think about it like a comedian’s shtick. You know, like Jack Benny’s miserliness or Rodney Dangerfield’s not getting any respect.
Surely Rodney Dangerfield got respect, especially after he started getting lots of laughs with it. And from reports, Jack Benny was fairly generous in donating to charity. These contradictions of their public personae did nothing to diminish their status.
About Ed taking the blame for the errors, this is just a furthering of the shtick. I’d be very surprised if Ed modifies the column enough to make these errors his. If he did, I expect that Cecil would truly ream him another asshole and not just figuratively (quick, someone on the SDStaff do an orifice count on Ed).
So everyone, just cool it, ok.
What we have here is blatant case of misdirection. We are told that Cecil Adams, ultimately, will provide us with the answers to our questions. Now we therefore assume (yes Cecil, we assume) that he would at least READ OVER an article if someone else has written it for him.
But wait a second
Here’s what editor Ed Zotti had to say about Cecil’s ‘Monty Hall’ question:
“His (Cecil’s) assistants, however, occasionally screw up. The Monty Hall three doors fiasco, for example… that was me”
That was Ed screwing up? But wait a minute, CECIL in his reply wrote:
“Hmm. I’ll admit I wasn’t paying much attention when I wrote that column”
WHAT??? Now CECIL is claiming to have written the column???
So now, not only do we have Cecil claiming that he wasn’t actually proved wrong, NOW we have him LYING about which articles HE HIMSELF is actually writing.
I’ll leave you all to ponder THAT one for a while…
Knowing Ed fairly well, and knowing that he fancies himself fairly strong in math (among other topics), I am not in the least surprised that Ed has taken blame upon himself for not catching Cecil’s error.
Dippy, did you read dtilque’s post? Read it again. Claiming absolute infaliblity is a shtick (perhars it would be nicer to say adopted persona) that makes the column more entertaining. Flat out admitting he’s wrong would destroy the internal logic of the shtick/persona, not unlike Dangerfeild admitting he gets respect. That’s the entertainment part. The more serious part is he will accept new evidence, print critisism, and say he’s wrong in an oblique and prickly way, which is more than most pretender to infaliblity will do. And the fact that he usually mantains a pretty high standard of accuracy, as evidenced by the fact that there’s only a couple of columns you can even bring up. And it seems to me the only one who should be upset about blaming Little Ed is Little Ed.
The Freudian in me senses an underlying motive in your need to get Cecil to admitt he’s wrong. Tell me, how do feel about your father?
Betenoir, did you read MY post?
Cecil is LYING about which articles he is actually writing.
Ed Zotti AND Cecil Adams are BOTH claiming to have written the Monty Hall column. If you don’t understand English, don’t post on this forum.
[speaking as moderator]
I see some personal insults being levelled in this thread. Please, let’s try and avoid those. We do have another forum that can be used for cooling off steam.
[end of moderator speech]
Dippymonger, it is well-known that Cecil Adams uses staff to help him research the problem. So the column, though written by Cecil Adams, can show errors that occurred due to the fault of an assistant, in this case Ed Zotti. I personally don’t think that you’ve uncovered a lie.
I think that the relevant point here, is that even if Cecil is occasionally wrong, he never stays wrong. If it does turn out that he was mistaken about something, or even if he reports on a consensus of experts which was accepted at the time but later turns out to be false (the aluminum-alzheimer’s link comes to mind), he admits it, and corrects his information. Marilyn vos Savant, by contrast, (probably his biggest competitor) has been wrong on at least a dozen occasions, and misleading on several others (heck, I’ve caught mistakes in her columns three or four times), but has only once ever admitted to being wrong.
Just what’s so obvious about the assumption that Monty always opens a door? Is it true that the vast majority of things which someone does once, they do all the time?
Let me correct a misconception. Cecil writes the columns, period. He sometimes relies on research from others, and may quote them (see the column on whether duck’s quack can echo, and Jane’s noble deeds in the cause.) But he writes the columns.
Ed edits Cecil’s work. What is sometimes clear to Cecil is not necessarily clear to us normal readers. Ed proofreads, makes sure all the ducks are in line, etc. On some columns the editing is minor, on some columns the editing can be involved. Cecil can toss off a remark and Ed has to verify the source, for instance.
Ed has not said, and never said, that he {b]wrote** a column – that would be wrong. He has edited columns, and taken responsibility for errors that slipped by his eagle eye.
That clear enough,Dippy? … and by the way, this is all public info.
And this is why ther is no MvSMB…
Ryan, I think I see what you’re saying. While the problem statement clearly says the host opens a losing door and offers you the option to switch, it is phrased in a single-case format, i.e. “If you were to go on the show and this happened…” The way it’s phrased, the host offered you the opportunity this time, with no concession that he would always offer any guest the option to switch.
So we are back to the real game show situation instead of the hypothetical generic case. Now we have no clue about the manipulations the host uses to determine if he’ll offer you the chance to switch or not. Which brings us back to the futher subtleties that Cecil brought up.