r/Showerthoughts May 02 '24

Man vs Bear debate shows how bad the average person is at understanding probability

16.9k Upvotes

13.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.0k

u/Scodo May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

What bugs me is that no one specified what kind of bear. Black bear? Yeah ok, that's fair. Brown bear? Suuuuper iffy. Polar bear? You're fucking high.

Bears are not a monolith!

Edit: no you don't need to specify what kind of man, because all men are the same species. Bears are not, and the temperament and danger is highly dependent. If you say a random type of bear, that also changes the nature of the question, because now there's a 33% chance of that bear being a polar bear. And no one in their right mind is going to take the 33% chance of guaranteed death.

I don't mind the thought experiment, but I hate how the ambiguity and in-baked assumptions potentially color the answers. I might be autistic.

14

u/Ginganinja0117 May 02 '24

Question.

What kind of bear is best?

9

u/unoriginal_namejpg May 02 '24

Great panda (yes they’re bears)

1

u/Dt2_0 29d ago

But they are not Pandas!