Is it a coincidence that Maria Von Savant’s (That chick with huge IQ) last name is a word for genius? or Was her family so smart that they made the word up because of her relatives or even her? Or, is that a stage name? Stage???
Surprisingly, that is her real name. She wrote a column on the subject in 1998, or 1997. (Sorry, couldn’t find the exact date)
Other Marilyn facts: She’s 54 years old, scored 228 on the IQ test, and is married to the inventor of the Jarvik 7 artifical heart, Dr. Robert Jarvik. The IQ ceiling has been lowered, so it is no longer possible for a person to score that high on an IQ test. That particular Guinness Record has been retired.
Marilyn Is Wrong: Marilyn is Wrong!
Marilyn Is Right: http://www.icdc.com/~samba/marlright/
Around here, we take a rather dim view of Ms. vos Savant. 
I meant to correct you in my original post, but it slipped my mind. Her correct name is Marilyn vos Savant.
I think it’s a coincidence. I’m not sure, but my guess would be that Savant has a latin root (in french savoir is “to know”, and I believe savant is the present participle of savoir).
Besides, what would that say about teh term “idiot savant”?
Look, I don’t take Marilyn vos Savant’s column all that seriously, and I don’t believe she’s really the most brilliant woman on Earth. But MOST of the time, the logic puzzles and brain-teasers in her columns are fun and interesting, and she’s always been right*, no matter how much critics howl.
The “Marilyn is Wrong” link starts with a case that illustrates my point perfectly. Marilyn once had a riddle that went “A woman has two children. At least one of them is a boy. What are the chances she has two boys?” Marilyn said “1/3.” The link features a host of people calling her an isiot and insisting the odds are “1/2”.
Sigh… There are THREE possibilities! Maybe the older child is a boy and the younger a girl; maybe the older child is a girl and the younger is a boy; or maybe they’re both boys. THREE possibilities! Thus, Marilyn was right. But the people posting on that link will never admit it!
Look, the very reason she publishes riddles like that (and the classic Monty Hall one) is that the answers are counterintuitive! To solve them we have to be logical- but we humans AREN’T terribly logical. We tend to accept certain assumptions without proof, and then make guesses based on those assumptions. And we’re terribly offended by the suggestion that we’re being illogical when we do so!
- I don’t read her columns that often, so I concede she MAY have made some stupid errors that I just haven’t seen.
For heaven’s sake, just look in a dictionary! Merriam-Webster reports that savant comes from modern French, which inherited it from Middle French, from the present participle of savior to know, from Latin sapere to be wise. It’s first recorded use in English is from 1719. Obviously, it didn’t from Marilyn. OTOH, it seems likely that she may not be the first member of her family to have made a name for herself, so to speak, by being highly inteligent.
*All right, Savant is perfectly clear, but what’s this vos? Some kind of Teutonic von with the n assimilated to the following s? I didn’t know German phonology did that kind of thing.
The Revolutionary War General Von Steuben was never called “Vos Steuben” AFAIK.
astorian, our own Bad Astronomer mentions one instance where Marilyn was definitely wrong. Also, in a recent column, she said that Picasso was simply a bad, untalented artist, a clear case of the Emperor having no clothes. I suppose to the extent that all opinions are valid, she was right about that, too. :rolleyes:
astorian: Not to start the whole 1/3 1/2 thing, but “two boys” is a doubly degenerate answer (if order matters). The older one is a boy and the younget one is a boy, or the younger one is a boy and the older one is a boy.
What I meant to add (damn my forgetful mind) is that it’s an amibiguous question, and both answers are correct depending on sampling methods.
If you say:
what’s the odds of me picking a family with two boys out of this lot of families with at least one boy? 1/3 is correct
If you say:
Here’s a family with at least one boy, what’re the odds that their other child is a boy? 1/2 is correct.
Neat, huh?
When the question was originally asked, I posted a question on Marilyn’s website. They wrote back to me and offered to send me a copy of the column gratis.
Here’s the answer frmo Parade Magazine Aug 10, 1997: