Not strictly evol-psych related, but you should know for future
reference that, stuck at a boring dinner party, you can create instant
chaos, and sometimes rupture long and close friendships, by
introducing the Monty Hall problem.

Charles Murray


> (snip) A few weeks ago I did one of my occasional "Math Guy" segments
> on NPR's Weekend
> Edition. The topic that I discussed with host Scott Simon was
> probability.
> Among the examples we discussed was the famous - or should I say
> infamous -
> Monty Hall Problem. Predictably, our discussion generated a mountain
> of email,
> both to me and to the producer, as listeners wrote to say that the
> answer I
> gave was wrong. (It wasn't.) The following week, I went back on the
> show to
> provide a further explanation. But as I knew from having written about
> this
> puzzler in newspapers and books on a number of occasions, and having
> used it as
> an example for many years in university probability classes, no amount
> of
> explanation can convince someone who has just met the problem for the
> first
> time and is sure that they are right - and hence that you are wrong -
> that it
> is in fact the other way round.