I'm afraid I only just got to read your post, but as my reply is nested
so deeply in the thread, I'll start a new one...
>>In a two-child family, one child is a boy. What is the probability that
>>the other child is a girl?
I can only be sure of myself on this one by listing the possibilities.
girl/girl
boy/boy
boy/girl
girl/boy
This indiciates, in my less than certain opinion, that the probability is
2 in 3 or, as the bookies would have it, 2-1 on!
It seems a little unintuitive, but please tell me I'm right!!
-Chrismo
I'm afraid you're wrong on this one. The probability of the second child
being a girl is unaffected by the sex of the first and remains at 50:50
(or around 52:48 to be tediously precise). If you did it your way, by
listing the possible outcomes, you'd actually just have boy/boy or
boy/girl, because the first child's sex has been established and the
other is an independent variable.
Rich.
Chrismo is correct on this one. In a similar fashion to the Monty Hall
problem many people think (as intuition and seemingly kosher
mathematical thinking suggests) that the probability would be 1/2.
This is incorrect though.
The answer is 2/3. Well done Chrismo!!
Mark
The Squirrel Lover
Interesting...
I believe it is a simple case of mimicry.
Although most plants use the lure of some sweet nectar to get insects
to pollinate them, a few species of plants use devious mimicry to lure
insects into pollinating them, thus saving the energy other flowers put
into producing nectar.
There are quite a few species of orchids, for instance, whose flowers
look and smell (to a drone) like a queen bee, one freshly hatched
and looking to form a new bee colony with the right drone.
The poor drone (who, as we all know, is often accussed of thinking
only with his antennae) is duped into a vain attempt to mate with the
flower-that-is-not-a-queen-bee; after all, if it looks (kind of) like a
queen bee, and smells (kind of) like a queen bee, it must be a queen
bee!!!!!! Now, this poor drone bee, in his pathetic attempts at
l'amour and understanding with the flower-that-is-not-a-queen-bee,
becomes coated in the flower's pollen. Eventually, frustrated and
rejected for reasons he does not understand, the poor bee drone
sadly flies off, wondering where he went wrong, all the while
unknowingly dusted with the flower's pollen.
Of course, being a boy bee, he quickly spies another flower-that-is-
not-a-queen-bee, forgets his recent hard learned lesson (remember,
he only thinks with his antennae, right?), and begins to court this new
flower with as much enthusiasm and vigor as the last.
Alas, the poor drone bee fails again, as he must with a flower-that-is-
not-a-queen-bee. Yet he has performed a necessary task for the
flowers; he has pollinated them, so a new generation of mischevious
flowers can spring forth anew.
Thus is the circle of life.
Now, whether, in all this, the bee drone ever realizes the flower is not
a queen bee; or whether he knows and doesn't care, or whether he
secretly prefers flowers to queen bees, I do not know. That is between
him and the Great BeeKeeper in the Sky.
And yes, this is real biology. One species of flower that does this is
Trichoceros antennifera, and can be found here:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/orphotdir/trichantennifer.jpg
I make no claim as to what parallels, if any, there are between the
story of LadyChablis.com and the story of the bee and the flower. I
merely offer some small bit of natural history on the varied forms of
mimicry that exist, for your viewing pleasure.
We talked about birds previously.
Now we've talked about bees.
I hope this helps you understand some of the less straight forward
nuances...
🙂
Reminds me of that question that was asked Dr. Stupid on the Ren
and Stimpy show:
"Dr. Stupid...what is that white slab in my can of beans?"
It's the Queen Bean! And all of the others are the worker beans that
serve her.
hehehehe
Great post Michael...and very informative...hopefully I didn't take
away from it with this idiotic reference.
Dave
Who only knows that bee stings really hurt and kills them every
chance he gets...bad bad me
I don't think it's 2/3, but perhaps I've missed something. Let me rephrase the question.
I've just flipped a coin twice. One of the flips came up heads. What was the chance that
other flip was tails?
Each coin flip is an independent trial. Each trial has 50/50 odds. The coin has no way of
knowing or remembering what happened on the other flip, so that's irrelevant to each
individual trial. Thus, 50/50.
If I'm wrong, please explain why.
Don't worry ngv76! It's a question that many, many people get wrong
and confused over (me included I hasten to add).
Thanks for having the guts to contribute. Right answer or wrong
answer; makes no difference. It is very commendable having the
courage to say what one is thinking.
Mark
The Squirrel Lover