Selfsufficientish.com

ocailleagh wrote:

DominicJ wrote:Really? I'm almost always right guessing genders, not that I take that as proof af psychic ability mind.

I should think not, a 50/50 chance hardly makes it a challenge
Though, to be fair, complementary therapies, psychism and Witchcraft are often more associated with women so your assumption was quite fair in that respect.

MKG wrote:I'm just getting into a quiet barney on another site about the new legislation on spritualists, mediums, astrologers and others of that ilk. It promises to be a good one. Just wondered what, with a site full of pagans, the general attitude is here. Should they be allowed to charge for their services, or should they be burned at the stake (not literally, of course).

I'll come straight out and lay my cards on the table - I think that at the first mention of charging for services, the word CHARLATAN should appear, just like here, in capital letters.

DominicJ wrote:

ocailleagh wrote:

DominicJ wrote:Really? I'm almost always right guessing genders, not that I take that as proof af psychic ability mind.

I should think not, a 50/50 chance hardly makes it a challenge
Though, to be fair, complementary therapies, psychism and Witchcraft are often more associated with women so your assumption was quite fair in that respect.

But in theory, I should be right 50% of the time, the last time I remmber being wrong was about 4 years ago.

MKG wrote:Oh, the ways statistics mislead people!!!!

On a two-way shot, you have a 50% chance of being correct. On the next two-way shot, you also have a 50% chance of being correct. Having guessed once correctly in no way alters the evens chance of guessing correctly again. Over a series of two-way shots, the probability of guessing correctly consistently decreases. However, the possibility of doing so, no matter how long the series, never goes away.

ocailleagh wrote:
Well, yes...obviously. But some people will consistently a high percentage of correct guesses, others will vary and still others will gain a consistently low percentage. Most, if not all, will be able to improve their score with practice. Theoretically at least.

PROBABILITY

Heads or tails? It’s a simple question with a far from simple answer. One that takes us into the strange and complex world of probability.

Probability is the field of maths relating to random events and, although commonplace now, the idea that you can pluck a piece of maths from the tumbling of dice, the shuffling of cards or the odds in the local lottery is a relatively recent and powerful one. It may start with the toss of a coin but probability reaches into every area of the modern world, from the analysis of society to the decay of an atom.

Contributors

Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford

Colva Roney-Dougal, Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews

Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick