The Time Everyone “Corrected” the World’s Smartest Woman
In 1990, Marilyn vos Savant correctly answered a probability puzzle in her column for Parade Magazine. And then, the world called her an idiot.
Hasnain says:
I had known about the Monty hall problem and the subsequent confusion as experts even doubted the analyses - but I had not known how vile and mean the comments had gotten - for no reason!
And this was back when sending comments actually required writing a letter and so I can only imagine how bad it would’ve been with the internet.
“Though her answer was correct, a vast swath of academics responded with outrage. In the proceeding months, vos Savant received more than 10,000 letters -- including a pair from the Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information, and a Research Mathematical Statistician from the National Institutes of Health -- all of which contended that she was entirely incompetent:”
Posted on 2021-05-09T02:33:10+0000