Perhaps you should fine-tune your reading skills because that is not what I said. What I said is that IQ scores, by themselves, aren't a good determinate of total intelligence. I also said (in fact, in my last post) that people with lower IQ's could probably do many things that people with higher IQ's can do, just that it would take them longer. I brought up the IQ scores because Einstein brought up the 2% figure, so I just checked my psychology book to see what percentage of the population has that intelligence level -- and lo and behold it is the second sigma.
Nutrition has already been eliminated in studies -- as have parental smoking and a host of other "seemingly obvious" causes. The true cause of the Flynn effect is unknown.
see what happens when you skim. if I was so smart i would have read through your banter in its entirety. i apologize. given the state of the world right now, i wouldn't necessarily argue that we're any smarter than the 50's.
Should I feel embarassed? I didn't solve the puzzle. I must be one of the common people - one of the 98%. I tried to do it like 10 mins, but then was perplexed as to what is the left side and what is the right side, because if you are actually in the house the perspective is different from that, when you are standing in front of a row of 5 houses i.e drawing boxes on a piece of paper. Not trying to excuse my stupidity, but great to see that many of the 2% are participating in ET Forums.
i'm proud of myself.. it took me about 15 minutes and i got the right answer. i used an excel spreadsheet to group and move things around easy.. here's how it ended... p.s. i don't think i'm in the smart 2% of the population though.
One could probably use Solver, wouldn't you think? Although, I suppose it might take more than 15 minutes to input all the constraints.
Thanks for the diversion ML. I wondered whether anyone tried and successfully solved the problem in their head, without the aid of paper or excell. Also, here is an interesting one combining probability and logic that I and other traders talked about a few years ago. The answer is fairly trivial, but the discussions were interesting: A game show host stands in front of three identical doors, behind two of which there is a goat and one of which is a new car (nothing goofy here, like two goats behind one door). After you choose one of the three doors, the game show host opens one of the two remaining doors, revealing a goat. The host then gives you the choice to keep your original door or switch to the remaining closed door that you did not choose originally. Presuming you would prefer a new auto to a goat, should you swithch? O.
Certainly you should switch! If you keep your choice as originally selected, you have a 33% chance of winning the car. If you switch, your chances improve to 50%. This situation happened all the time on the old game show 'Let's make a deal', and contestants would constantly screw it up.
ML, I'll hold off on the answer, but consider that you have only accounted for 83% of the 100% probability that one of the two remaining doors hides the car (which we know for certain ;0) . O.