Hah, that's excellent! I'd never heard of that specific trick, but survivor bias does seem like one of the best ways to fool scam-aware people into trusting you.
I had a b-school class do a similar exercise, in the context of the debate between passively and actively managed funds. Everyone in the class was asked to stand up, pull out a coin and flip it. If you flipped tails you sat down. Then the remaining students flipped again, repeating until there was only one person left standing. At which point the professor "interviewed" the student, asking what her method was and how she became such a skilled heads-flipper. Lots of parallels in the real world where luck is a dominating factor (stock picking, choosing a "rocket ship" company to join or invest in, general business success), yet our tendency is to seek out a cause or reason.
I like the exercise. But from a practical pedagogical standpoint (in the unlikely scenario I ever teach a class probability or survivor bias), what would be a safe point to stop the flipping? 3 students left standing? 2? What if all of the students still standing all flip tails simultaneously?
Oh, that's a good question. I'd stop at 4, or certainly anywhere under that. 4 flipping is a 1/16 chance of lesson failure, which isn't bad but is a bit uncomfortable.
Maybe you'd weight it based on class size? 4 left isn't bad in a class of 100, but it's a bit high in a class of 10.
