Very fun video.
Even though the author's intent of the number test was to explain the scientific method, which does that fine enough, I think he actually was demonstrating a more abstract problem that distinguishes the scientist from the science and it is called "confirmation bias". "Confirmation bias" is where people tend to gravitate to what they already believe or tend to gravitate to their strongest impressions. This is why there are methodologies in science called double or triple blind experiments where the experimenter and the subjects do not know the final results. The whole idea that humans are flawed, hence there are these biases, is in any true science involving scientists and this is
one of the reasons why there is the scientific method. The scientific method is just one tool to try to remove these biases so to be sure it is about the science instead of being about the human.
This is what drives me crazy about the hysterical environmental causes and the latest hysteric is "climate change". It is quite astounding that not a single computer model predicting the supposed exponential strength of hurricanes, blizzards, droughts, other weather catastrophes, and that these scientists are looking to be right instead of using the scientific method, that is looking for ways to prove how the theory is wrong. Unfortunately,
drama tends to rake in more money than the scientific method.
In the context of this video, the host states two keywords that stood out to be the strongest impression, that is "rule" and "numbers". So, the individuals listening instantly jump to an arithmetic rule involving multiplication, addition, subtraction, division, etc.
It is just a different way of thinking and it is not the "normal" way of thinking, which is why none of the listeners got it figured without some help from the host.
In other words, if the listener was free of bias, then the viewer should have had it figured out
before the 1:20 time marker in the video.
Nothing wrong with not guessing the rule correctly before the 1:20 time marker since humans actually are naturally flawed in all respects.
