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prase comments on An Anchoring Experiment - Less Wrong
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Part 1, group II question:
What is the population of the Central African Republic?
Give an estimate in a subcomment. Please begin your answer with "I suppose the correct value is probably" or some other preface of comparable length; if you write just the number, it appears in the Recent Comments bar and can bias other respondents.
I note that I don't know what the Central African Republic is, but I'm guessing that it's somewhere in Africa. I'm probably best off estimating that it has the average population of a state in Africa, but I don't know what this is either. It will be much smaller than the US population (P>.999), but that doesn't help me....much. I note that this fact in itself implies that I can form a probability distribution. My estimated probability of the Central African Republic being smaller than the US is .999, so I have .999 to distribute within the range 0>450,000,000 (4.5x10^8 is my estimate of the US population).
I don't think that I should use a hypothesis of complete ignorance here because I think that I would have a greater chance of hearing of it the more people it had, but this isn't very dependable considering that I don't follow politics that much. I also note that you may have made the name up, giving it a population of zero. But wouldn't that render the experiment invalid? I can't immediately see why. You're also posting this on April Fools, of all days, and we haven't had a joke yet, so I weight this option more than the others.
Yet we're trying to minimize error here, not pick the integer which we believe has the highest probability of being a correct answer. To take this possibility into account, I will multiply my guess of an average nation's population by .4.
What data can I use to make that guess. Well, I was at a Model United Nations conference once, and I thought that there were about 94 nations present. I suppose that there are about 40 nations not present in the UN, so let's run 6.5 billion/136. We get 46 million. I will multiply that number by .4 to get 18.7 million.
Reposted: put this in the wrong place the first time.
Upvoted for being the sort of analysis one should do to avoid anchoring. Ironically it ended up much closer to the anchor than to the correct value.
rot13ed: svsgl zvyyvba crbcyr
I suppose the correct value is probably 16 million.
I suppose the correct value is probably around 2 million.
I suppose the correct value is probably 10 million
I suppose the correct value is probably 10 million.
Probably: around 10 million.
I had no idea there was even a country with that name, 20 million.
I suppose the correct value is probably 10 million. (Incidentally, I have no clue whatsoever, this is a guess)
Zl thrff jbhyq or svir zvyyvba
Edit: scratch that. I was influenced by the first answer I saw on the page... my answer should not count. Leaving it for posterity, below -- I'd make it strikethrough if I knew how.
I suppose the correct value is probably 50 million.
I don't know what the Central African Republic is, but I would guess about 1 million.
I remember looking up the population of Libya recently, which is around 6m, and I feel like the population of Central African Republic is a bit lower. I suppose the correct value is around 3m.
I suppose the correct value is around 5 million. I posted this without looking up any data that might have informed my answer.
I have very little idea but it's probably around five million?
About 25 million people.
5 million
30 million people