RT, what you're saying is intuitive but blkwidow said the response I'm going with.

For me the intuitive argument is best illustrated by adding another BB row (I can be either eldest or youngest), effectively doing the same thing you did.

I wish I could explain my argument in a way that jibes with intuition, but the only way I know to test/"prove" this is to take real life data (annoying to find/create a large sample), & crunch the numbers (simple). I'll get back to you when I have that info. I'm confident that my method will hold water because it takes the global view. You've got to take a step back & see the big picture - you've taught me this!!

I owe you lunch if the numbers back you up.

 

Good to hear from you! Hope all's well, especially with the young 'manian devil.

 

His avatar??

 

Come on MikeG bust out the calculator and show this young buck where he can stick his fake trick questions that don't turn out to be trick after all

 

Ray, I don't really know much about sex selection mechanisms or statistics or any of that stuff. X and Y, that's about as much as I know. I honestly don't even know if this is supposed to be some kind of shaggy dog joke or what.

It seems to me that each conception has about a 50% chance of being male or female. Of course, identical twins are always the same, but that's because they are only a single conception.

If there are other factors involved, I've never learned about them.

Now in the old "Let's Make A Deal" game, you have a classic logic problem. Door number 1, number 2, or number 3. There is a new car behind one of the three doors. You pick door number 1. Monty Hall shows you that there is nothing behind door number 3. Then he offers to let you switch choices. Should you?

Yes, you should. There was a 2/3 chance that the car was behind either 2 or 3, and Monty showed you which one it isn't. So you double your chances of winning the car if you switch to door number 2.

But this is not that game. The trick there is that those choices were not actually independent. Monty gave you extra information when he showed you that empty door, and it was this extra information that allows you to increase your odds of winning. I don't see how that would apply in this case.

This is more like a repeated coin flip. Whatever the other coin flips turned out to be (heads or tails) makes no difference to the outcome of any other coin flip. So each one has a 50% chance of being heads or tails.

In my own personal case, FWIW, my sibling is a sister. And she's married, so I'm not offering anyone a date with her. And she's selling some Lab puppies, if anybody here is interested in training a hunting retriever. http://home.comcast.net/~westad/duchess/litter.html There are six boy puppies and two girl puppies. I leave it to the reader to work out the odds involved in that.

 

Hey, long time no see. I see you got a bike. I've got several freinds I ride with fairly regularly. We are fairly mellow, you should go with us. Let me know.

 

Ok so who is the winner? I don't want the date, I just want to be right.

 

Conceptions are statistically independent events, with the exception of a small number of rare possibilities:

- Identical twins, which is a very small percentage of all births (< 1/1000 of 1% I believe).
- Fathers who only have X chromosome sperm. This is even more rare, but there's at least one significant cases involving a Monarch who killed his wives due to their inability to conceive a male heir.

The latter is obviously not possible in Ant-wan's case, and the minute number of identical twins makes that statistically irrelevant.

Unless there's something missing, it's 50/50.

 

Hermaphrodites, twins & monarchs comprise a negligible percentage of the population.

The answer is 2/3's.

 

alright twan twan and blkwidow, time to present your case ......