Friday Puzzler -- Boys and Girls

Re: Friday Puzzler -- Boys and Girls

Ed in Leaside

Um, no ...

Correct 😄

Alex Y

Very good, Ed. The rules can cause one to possibly go the wrong way in reasoning (as did the king), but doesn't change the assumption of a 50-50 breakdown in births.

Re: Correct 😄

Ed in Leaside

The 50:50 is an average. But some will only have boys, and others only have girls. I worked for a businessman who had 6 girls who really wanted a son to take over ...

Re: Correct 😄

Alex Y

Yep. And one thing the king's edict will do is create far more families with only daughters (half of families) than those with only sons (no families).

"businessman who had 6 girls"

And looking only at families with 6 children, for every one like him, there was another family that had 6 boys, and 62 families that had boys and girls. (actually faulty reasoning, since it is likely that many of the folks having a sixth child were like your former boss, and had 5 of one gender first)

Re: Correct 😄

Sam Force

I had 2 uncles from the same parents, 1 had 4 sons and the other had 4 daughters.

Re: Friday Puzzler -- Boys and Girls

johnv

To get really nit-picky actually there is a slightly statistical greater number of girls than boys born. doesn't really change the answer here.

Re: Friday Puzzler -- Boys and Girls

Alex Y

To get really nit-picky actually there is a slightly statistical greater number of girls than boys born

Actually, there is an slight bias in favor of male births. My father in law was an OB/GYN in the days before sonograms were so common and so high resolution. When patients wanted to know the sex of their coming baby, he would try to dissuade them from believing old wives tales. But if he was unsuccessful and they insisted, he'd always guess male, figuring he'd be right 51% to 52% of the time.

Re: Friday Puzzler -- Boys and Girls

johnv

Old age and mixed up facts. More male births. more females live past infancy.