Dear Wise Persons,
Would the following work?
Imagine you enter a casino that has a thousand roulette tables. The rumor circulates around the casino that one of the wheels is loaded. So, you call up a thousand of your friends and you all work together to find the loaded wheel. Why, because if you use your knowledge to play that wheel you will make a LOT of money. Now the problem you all face, of course, is that a run of successes is not an infallible sign of a loaded wheel. In fact, given randomness, it is assured that with a thousand players playing a thousand wheels as fast as they can, there will be random long runs of successes. But the longer a run of success continues, the greater is the probability that the wheel that produces those successes is biased. So, your team of players would be paid, on this account, for beginning to focus its play on those wheels with the longest runs.
FWIW, this, I think, is Peirce’s model of scientific induction.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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