[Hashiell_Dammett]

Yes Marilyn vos Savant wrote about the Monte Hall Question and proved that switching doors will win you the prize twice as often as the goat. Apparantly, all sorts of academics and statisticians wrote to her to tell her she was wrong and that the odds were 50/50.

The Cecil Adams article is interesting because he asserts that Marilyn is wrong. Then he actually admits that Marilyn is right but manages to back pedal and say that she is not entirely right because you can not assume that Monte Hall will even open a door. I think he's reaching at straws there.

I first heard about it when my statistics professor used the Monte Hall Question to explain Bayes Theorum in his class (and since Bayes Theorum deals with givens), he proposed that it is a GIVEN that Monte Hall will ALWAYS show you an empty door.
It was pretty amazing how many people in that class still insisted that switching doors is a 50/50 proposition. I think Bayes Theorum is what confused them in the first place. Ultimately, it's a complicated way of explaining a pretty simple concept.