(Written before watching)
Skill #1. I would have failed this if I had not had the opportunity explicitly pointed out to me.
Skill #2.
a. Water forms a cylindrical shell around the towel.
b. Water is pushed into the parts of the towel which are least compressed, but does not exit from the towel.
c. Water flies off from towel equally in all directions perpendicular to the towel axis.
d. Water adheres to towel, in a spiral pattern following the way the towel is wrung out.
e. (Something else I haven't thought of.)
Skill #3. I'm not really sure what you mean by "incorporate prior information", and how it differs from skill #2/4. To generate the possibilities in number 2, I used my model of how wrung towels behave on earth, and my knowledge of how things behave in space, mostly from Don Pettit videos (which I assume is also the source of the linked video). But I don't really have clear physical intuitions about the situation, nor do I have enough knowledge of physics to be able to work it out.
Skill #4. Of my options in number 2, I'd go for c. 20% d. 10% a. 10% b. 5%. ( therefore e. 100-45=55%) Note: I was loath to put down numbers, because I have basically no way to calibrate those guesses, but in the spirit of the exercise, those are as close to my true expectations as I can manage. On reflecting, I do actually expect greater than even odds that none of my answers are right, so even though it feels like cheating to say " 55% something I haven't thought of", I'm sticking with it.
(Video watching time) Skill #5. I can see in a very superficial way why it works the way it does. I don't think this equates to real understanding though.
Skill #6. So first of all, it wasn't Don Pettit. So I lose points there. :p Secondly, the answer is somewhere between my prediction a. and my non-prediction e. I don't think I can chalk that down as a win. Partial success: something I hadn't thought of happened (water moving onto the hands), which I had predicted at 55%. Partial failure: something I had thought of happened (water forming a cylindrical shell around the towel), but I had only predicted it was 10% likely. Neither of these are clear cut, you could swap the labels of "success" and "failure" and not be inaccurate…
Thanks for the puzzle!
ETA: line breaks, formatting
If you haven't seen the video of a wet towel being wrung out in space yet, it provides a great opportunity to test some basic rationality skills.
Skill #1: Notice the opportunity. (I failed this test. I had a fuzzy, wrong idea about what would happen. I didn't notice the fuzziness of my own thinking until after I watched the video, when it was too late to apply basic rationality skills. I'll never know if I could have made a correct prediction.)
Skill #2: Enumerate possibilities.
Skill #3: Incorporate prior information.
Skill #4: Making clear predictions.
Skill #5: Understanding why/how your prediction failed/succeeded.
Skill #6: There may be some things you predicted and some you didn't. Don't forget to notice the partial failures along with the partial success.
Experiment:
You are on the International Space Station. You get a towel soaking wet, then you wring it out. What happens?
Video of the experiment
If you haven't seen it, don't scroll into the comments.
Don't click the link until you've thought about it!