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To be honest, the first question is still 1 in 2. The only way it could be 1 in 3 is if the person posing the question deliberately looked for a man with a boy, and even then it depends on how the man was selected. And that's not a reasonable assumption from the question. The only fair...

Yep.

:facepalm: I didn't just make up that bit, I made up the whole question that Seagull58 is referring to. It wasn't the original question, I was asking another question that didn't have the ambiguity of the original, so that we could clear up the disagreements over probability and ambiguity. What...

:lol: Don't know if you're trolling, haven't read the whole thread or what, but the logic is right. It's a separate question to the OP. The question I've posed involves asking couples what gender one of their children is, so for you to now say that it's nothing to do with asking couples is...

I don't think I've missed the alternative logic, I explained the alternative logic in post #97 and you replied saying "this is pretty much exactly the logic behind my argument." I know what you're saying with regards to the original question, and how it can be interpreted differently. What I'm...

:lol: Most agree the original question is ambiguous, but you still try and argue that my very straightforward example with 4 couples has a 1 in 3 chance of the 2nd child being a boy (in the example) and you're wrong. There's no ambiguity there. EDIT - I see you've been back and done some sneaky...

So if you placed a bet that BZ would score a goal, and he scored a hat-trick, you wouldn't go an collect your bet :facepalm: Obviously if you asked Bobby how the game went, he'd say he scored 3, he wouldn't say 'I scored a goal, and then 2 more', but he did score a goal and the bookie would...

But why were we told one was a boy, why weren't we told one was a girl? This is part of the facts, and you're overlooking it. But even if we can't take it from the original question, we can take it from subsequent questions we've posed, and you've still tried to argue that it's 1 in 3, and it's...

Be my guest. Yep. Well we can pretend the other couple didn't exist, it would be the same. This is where you are wrong. Why did couple 2 tell me they had a boy, why didn't they say they had a girl. Same goes for couple 3. On average, one of those couples would have said they had a girl, so...

Can you explain why you don't follow it - which is the first sentence that you don't agree with/follow? EDIT - ignore this, I'll reply to your other post

Yes. That was just a way of making a number to help people think about the problem. For HKFC: We could make it 4 couples if you like. One has 2 boys, one has 2 girls, two couples have one of each. You ask a random couple to tell you the gender of one of their children. The couple says they...

We did something similar in stats at uni - there's a bag with 3 coins in. One is 2 white sides, one has 2 black sides, and the other has 1 white side and 1 black side. You pull one out and one side is black - what's the probability of the other side being black?

But we're going with the basic understanding that about 50% of children are boys, and 50% girls, from a sample of several billion.

In the words of Darth Vader: Apology accepted. In the words of Yoda: You must unlearn what you have learned.

Yep, but that's not the question. The question is, if I told you one was heads, what is the possibility both are, and it's 50%. Not straight forward, I grant you, but it is. The question is, why did I tell you one was heads? A lot of the time I could have said one is tails, but when both are...

I think it matters. This is why. Easy part 1: Let's consider 100 couples have a baby. Half have a boy, half have a girl. Now let's consider they all have a second baby, half having a boy, half a girl. Hopefully most of us would agree that 25% have 2 boys, 25% have 2 girls, and 50% have one of...

Well we've certainly moved away from some of the ambiguity of the original question, but we may still have some issues with the question. This is your reworded question: "What is the probability of two children both being male, given the proviso that at least one definitely is?" You also said...

The OP is ambiguous and open to interpretation, but we are expanding on the original question such that it becomes one of statistics, that can be answered.

You can word it however you like. I was just trying to word it in a clear way so we all understand what's being debated. Your wording was: That's the same thing. It's 50%. You've stated you disagree. I can prove that you're wrong, but first I want to see if I can hustle some money out of you :)...

Any chance you'll put some money on it :)