The paper shows some significant evidence that human coin flips are not as fair as I would have expected (plus probably a bunch of people would agree with me). There’s always some probability that this happened by chance, but this is pretty low.

Of course, we should be able to build a really accurate coin flipping machine, but I never would have expected such a bias for human flippers.

This is why science is awesome and challenging your ideas is important.

Edit: hopefully this is not too wrong a place, but Lemmy is small, and I didn’t know where else I could share such an exciting finding.

  • @treefrog@lemm.eeEnglish
    17•9 months ago

    I remember it feeling this way as a kid. That coins tend to land on the same side they start on.

    • @PetDinosaurs@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      18•9 months ago

      No! Bad treefrog.

      If it “feels like” something, you’re probably fooling yourself.

      Hard evidence. The easiest person to fool is yourself.

      Edit: people, please don’t down vote treefrog. They are learning, and I am joking.

      Be nice. This place is way toxic. I’m not sure how much more I can handle it.

      • @treefrog@lemm.eeEnglish
        7•9 months ago

        I read the beginning of the article. It confirmed my gut feeling. But I certainly didn’t run 300k coin flips to check lol

      • JessicaEnglish
        2•9 months ago

        Jokes on me! I doubt most of my decisions and the logic that lead up to them!

        Evidenced based research ftw, though.

        • @PetDinosaurs@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          -1•9 months ago

          If you’re still young, careful about too much imposter syndrome.

          It took me until some reasonably extreme events for me to acknowledge that I was smart.

          • JessicaEnglish
            3•9 months ago

            I’m being a bit facetious. It took me quite a while, and with the help of my best friend, to realize I am smart. I don’t like to say that sort of thing. I am smart when it comes to the things that I know well, but am clueless on so much else.

            • @PetDinosaurs@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              1•9 months ago

              Exactly.

              Just making sure.

              I had a lot of trouble gathering that confidence as well until I got into industry.

    • @Aussiemandeus@aussie.zoneEnglish
      2•9 months ago

      I’m with you, i used to try influence what i wanted by catching it.

      If i wanted what i had flipped from i caught it palm up and then revealed. If i wanted the opposite i caught it and then revealed it onto my other hand.

      As i got older i wouldn’t let people catch the coin only let it hit the ground and bounce around.

    • Nepenthe
      2•9 months ago

      I remember the opposite: heads always felt like “right way up” to us, but the result was almost always tails no matter who flipped it. To the extent that it still feels like the heads/tails percentage is the only positive version of the 50-50-90 rule, and I will never choose anything else.

      Probably confirmation bias. But I wonder if the people in my family are wobblier than others.