As stated in the article, this is an example of a veridical paradox under Quine'...

pervycreeper · on July 16, 2015

The point is that it doesn't even appear absurd unless you have absolutely no number sense.

mst · on July 16, 2015

Typical Mind Fallacy.

Took me ten seconds to get it. Takes most people (IME) a lot longer than me to get similar things.

Maybe "no number sense" is actually "other people's minds don't usually work like mine"?

marvy · on July 16, 2015

If you think that, you have more number sense than many people. Perhaps more than most :)

vacri · on July 16, 2015

Part of it is also the ambiguous way the question is phrased. amolgupta above mentions the same thing, but using humans (engineers and managers) and the answer is much more obvious in that context.

Particularly with the second form of the question in the article - anyone who's ever had a potato knows that it doesn't shrink to half it's weight overnight. Poor situation selection and confusing wording do not make a paradox.