I read about this problem and the fact that multiple educated writers falsely called out vos Savant in an old Martin Gardner column, and it shines in my memory as one of the problems that illuminated math for me and made me see recreational math as worthwhile. Of course back when he wrote about it the topic of sexism was mercifully left out, and I honestly hadn't given a moment's thought to the fact that vos Savant was a woman until I read this new take on it, but there you go.

Have standards for what makes something confusing and difficult to understand risen significantly over the decades? When I brought this problem up with my group of (admittedly geeky and mathy) friends no one was left unconvinced by the end of the afternoon, and most even had the intuition as well as the mathematical proof of the answer. Clearly we aren't any smarter than the public figures who couldn't comprehend this puzzle a half a century ago-- so it all in the framing of the problem?