Pigeons beat Monty Hall problem

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I hate to start yet another Monty Hall thread (see Unca Cecil’s column), but this is really a new tangent.

Apparently humans – and this applies across cultures – have very good reasons for not intuitively understanding the Monty Hall problem. Pigeons, on the other hand, easily figure it out and eventually start switching almost 100% of the time.

And the reason has to do with the different ways humans and pigeons figure out probabilities.

http://www.livescience.com/animals/pigeons-monty-hall-problem-100304.html
Powers &8^]

2

I was going to answer “bleeah”, since pigeons don’t have any way of knowing how the situation is set up to work ahead of time. But then I got to this:

“It’s taking longer than we thought” indeed.

3

I, for one, welcome our new Columbiforme Overlords.

4

Let’s see if they can manage to take off from a treadmill…

5

I’ll have to save this one for my undergrads.

6

Thank goodness I’m already in good with a few of them.

7

I, for one, will not go down without a fight. Peanuts coated with cyanide should do the trick. I’ll murder them all amidst laughter and merriment, except for the few I take home to experiment.

8

All the world seems in tune…