You are a biologist traveling in the rainforest. You are bitten by a poisonous snake. Luckily, you know that the antidote for this poison is secreted by the female of a certain species of frog native to this rainforest. You remember that females and males of this species look exactly the same, and can only be distinguished by the distinctive croaking of the male. You also remember that the population is split evenly between females and males. Amazingly, you spot a frog of this species in front of you. At the same time you hear the distinctive croak of a male of the species behind you. You turn around and see two frogs where the croak came from. You are starting to fade out and only have enough time to run to the frog in front of you and lick it or to the frogs behind you and lick them. Which choice will maximize your chance of survival?
I guarantee you almost all of Veeky Forums will get this wrong
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It's 50/50 either way.
So you're saying there is a 50% chance of licking a female if you lick the lone frog? And a 50% chance if you lick the two frogs?
Wrong. Try again.
Hint: That would imply that males are as likely to not croak as females, which can't be true.
Luckily, the snake isn't venomous, so I'll be fine.
Nearly 100% chance that the croaker is a male. That leaves the other 2 as 50/50 each, meaning that other anons guess of 50/50 was reasonable.
You lick the one in front of you.
You being between the two behind you and the one in front of you I doubt they'd be croaking at you. And who knows those could be two males behind you about to fite 2 the death.
>also lol what if none of them were the one that croaked then go with the two behind you for max probabilities
>That leaves the other 2 as 50/50 each
Nope. Wrong.
Again, in order for a frog that was not heard to croak to have equal chance of being male or female, males would have to never croak. But we know they do croak.
Wrong, try again. Don't assume anything about the behavior of the frogs that was not mentioned in the question.
By
>That would imply that males are as likely to not croak as females, which can't be true.
I surmise you mean that there was a considerable probability that a male frog would croak on that situation.
With that in mind, you should probably lick the lone frog, as that yields a higher probability of licking a female.
Probability of licking a female from the group:
50%
Probability of licking a female by choosing the lone frog:
50% + (X/2)
X being the probability of a male frog croaking in said situation. The value of X is unknow, but it can safely be assumed to be higher than 0, since there is no such a thing as "negative croaking".