Is it random?
Enter starting number in yellow field.
Is this data series random?
No. These numbers, although they seem random, are generated by the - otherwise meaningless - algorithm below.
Is this random?
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1Answer: we don’t know. Although it looks very much non-random, it could be both a result of a - very simple - algorithm, or a section from the result of a random data series (e.g. tossing coins). To know which one, we’d need to examine the process that generated this data series.
The takeaway:
Because of our cognitive biases, pattern recognition instincts and misplaced confidence, we tend to take it for a fact that the first series is random and the second series is non-random. In reality, we cannot know. In the above case for example, the first series is not random, since it is generated by an algorithm, and the second series is random, since that series was grabbed from a coin-tossing game.