There is something interesting in the world of statistics called ‘The Birthday Paradox’.
It is so named because if you ask the average person what size group you would have to have to find two people with the same birthday, meaning the same month and day, people often guess a very large number, like several hundred, just based on the fact that there is 365 days in a year.
What are the odds that you know any two people in a group?
The reality, though, is quite different.
In a group of just 23 people for example there’s a 50/50 chance that you would find two people with the same birthday.
What it calls to mind for me is that we often have assumptions that we make that might not even sound completely rational to us, but we kind of believe anyway until we find evidence to the contrary. So, when I have a question about something that doesn’t seem totally right, or that seems curious, asking a question sometimes resolves that in finding out what the reality truly is.