Star Trek implication
Hi guys, I'm following the Mathematical Fundamentals course, and I was trying to solve a problem on the quiz, I guessed the answer but I'm not sure why, could you help me please? (Note: I've already looked at Brilliant's explanation, but I still don't get it, hopefully I'm asking in the right section)
Pasted here the problem:
In the original TV show Star Trek, crew members wearing a red shirt died more on screen than any other type of crew. (This statement is true: 25 died wearing red shirts, 10 wearing gold, and 8 wearing blue.)
Does this mean that (supposing you are a crew member on Star Trek) you are more likely to die if you are wearing a red shirt?
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1 solution
Just because a larger number of people wearing red shirts died, larger than the sum of all the others, this does not necessarily bean that they are more likely to die. Say that there were 1000 people wearing red shirts and 100 wearing gold and blue respectively. Then red would have a 1 0 0 0 2 5 = 0.025 chance while the others would have 1 0 0 1 0 = 0.1 and 1 0 0 8 = 0.08. Of course, there would be that flipped, with 25 people with red shirts (100%) and some ridiculously large number of people wearing gold and blue, but it is enough to know that it is not certain that you are more likely to die if you are wearing a red shirt.