Here is a story that shows why logic often wins over intuition. Do you remember the Monty Hall problem? In 1990, this puzzle exploded the internet thanks to a woman with an unusual name.

Marilyn vos Savant — a person with an IQ of 228, which was simply incredible at the time. She wrote a column in Parade Magazine, where she published the solution to the famous Monty Hall paradox. The essence of the problem is simple: three doors, behind one is a car, behind the other two are goats. The participant chooses a door, the host opens a door with a goat, and you are offered to switch your choice. The question: should you switch?

Marilyn answered: yes, you should switch. And it caused a storm. Over 10,000 letters flooded the editorial office. Almost a thousand of them were from people with doctoral degrees. And 90% of them claimed that Marilyn vos Savant was wrong. Can you imagine? Scholars with academic degrees against a columnist.

But here’s what’s interesting — she was right. The probability of winning by switching doors is 2/3, and if you stick with your original choice, it’s only 1/3. This is not intuition, this is pure mathematics. Later, MIT ran computer simulations, and MythBusters conducted experiments. All confirmed: Marilyn vos Savant was absolutely correct.

The story of this woman is interesting not only because of her IQ. In childhood, she faced serious difficulties, even had to leave the University of Washington to support her family business. But that didn’t stop her from becoming famous thanks to her column Ask Marilyn, which she has been writing since 1985.

This case with the Monty Hall problem remains in history as an excellent example of how our intuition can mislead us, and how logic and mathematics always win. Even if thousands of people with doctoral degrees rise against you.