(Submitted by Skepticality listener Michael O’Dea
Hi there,
I enjoy the show and want to tell you my against-the-odds-story.
I am from Dublin, Ireland and I was on vacation in Boston, visiting my cousin about 20 years ago.
There was a free public concert in the Boston Common park. (It was Kid Creole and the Coconuts, not that that is relevant!)
I was with an American friend who was a server in a Boston restaurant (Legal’s) at the time. As we enjoyed the music he met a colleague from the restaurant who was with a companion and they chatted for a few minutes as we watched the gig. My friend then went to introduce me, when the companion turned around it was my next-door-neighbour from Dublin!
We had not seen each other for years and had no other connection of any kind other than growing up in adjacent houses.
What do you think?
Below are the extended notes provided by cognitive psychologist and statistician Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 239. Take a look and leave your comments below. Also, please be sure to listen to the podcast for our own hilarious commentary. Also, visit Barbara’s blog.
I think this is an interesting coincidence! Normally, I would talk about the factors that would increase the probability of this happening, so I will, but there are really very few. People living next door to one another are much, much more alike than two people chosen at random from the global population. They are more likely to be close together in S.E.S. (socioeconomic status), for example. They are more likely to be exposed to similar cultural icons (such as music genres). Factors such as these may exponentially increase the probability of running into each other at just such an event.
However, given the astronomically small base probability (e.g., given all of the people in the world, the probability of any two people, chosen at random, would meet), this is still a story with crazy odds.
Consider the factors that don’t really come into play here, but have in similar stories we have encountered. For example it is unlikely both been inspired to visit by the same event (e.g., hearing a mutual friend talk about visiting Boston). They may have been inspired to visit (assuming the companion was also visiting and not living there) by cheap airfare to the U.S., but then why choose Boston? The probability that they all met each other through mutual friends is greatly reduced by the fact that the Americans know each other because they work together (unless, of course, they knew each other before working there).
So we must rely on the mathematical rule that we should expect at least some low- and even astronomical-probability events to occur in our lives, given the large number of events that occur.
Well, there’s a sizable (ethnically) Irish population in Boston, so a couple of Irishmen visiting their relatives isn’t that weird. There’s also the fact that nationality does play some part in one’s taste in music, statistically at least. There’s also probably some sort of correlation of visitors and immigrants socializing with particular professions and the obvious correlation of people knowing others with the same or related profession and hanging in similar social circles.
And, again, how many previously unknown companions of friends of friends has the person met? It’s not very amazing to meet complete strangers.
Great podcast. I hear the segment on Skepticality and enjoy it. I have a simple couple of questions. Why do you have that irritating clicking noise when one of you reads the submitter’s story? Is it supposed to be a telegraph key? Second, after you read the submitter’s story why, then, does the other person tell us the submitter’s story that we just heard? I understand repetition is good for learning but, frankly, I just heard the submitter’s story; I haven’t forgotten it yet. Anyway, other than those little nitpicks, great podcast; looking forward to hearing more.
Thanks for the comments. The background noise works for some other podcasts. We were trying it out. It’s meant to indicate that we are being the “voice” of the submitter or the advisor, to distinguish the words in the script from our own voices as John and Wendy. I wasn’t crazy about it either, so the past few episodes we discontinued that feature. Do you like it better?
Also, the summary of the submission is to clarify what the submitter was asking about. Sometimes the stories submitted are longer and more detailed than others – the summary is meant to be explanatory, like active listening.