Over 1,000 PhDs Got This Basic Logic Question Wrong — Even After Being Shown the Answer

Explaining the Monty Hall Problem

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“Logic is in the eye of the logician.” — Gloria Steinem

Oh boy, do we ever like proving ourselves to be right. After all, it’s what fuels social media and our ever-rising disdain for each other. But it’s not just politics and cultural issues that drive us to rage against the human machine, even simple non-consequential hypotheticals can do it, too.

Case in point:

• The advice columnist Ann Landers once received over 15,000 letters after jestingly stating which side toilet paper should hang on (it’s over, by the way).
• Nerds all over the world continually debate the best video game of all time (Mariokart, of course).
• Foodies have been locked in a battle for millennia to determine what is the single best dish (peanut butter tuna sandwiches, duh).

The list of controversies is unending, but this simple logic test based on an old game show has to be one of the weirdest — and hotly debated — ones to ever exist.

It’s usually referred to as the Monty Hall problem, and it takes a minute to wrap your head around it.

The history of the Monty Hall…