[bonoboTP]

I agree that it's a very misleading experiment. People usually don't need to answer questions of pure dry mathematical probability. What most people answer here is a differently interpreted question:

"Which option, do you think, is probably more descriptive of Linda?"

Or "Do you think a bank teller usually has such a life history? How about a feminist bank teller?"

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I hate it when experimenters ask about probability explicitly. It just test how much probability theory you've learned in school. How familiar you are with the mathematical framework. But it doesn't test everyday reasoning. Good tests for probabilistic thinking shouldn't even mention the word 'probability', but set up some physical or other task where you have to use probabilistic reasoning to solve it effectively.

For example the Wason selection task (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task) is also an artificial question that is hard to answer, but as soon as a practical story is built around it (alcohol and age), people can solve it much easier.

It's not that people are irrational, they are just bad at abstract thinking devoid of any practicality. We like to think in stories, situations, intentions. Abstract, "robotic" thinking is harder.