I was surprised that nobody quizzed me when I wrote that a single individual could have two different sets of DNA. Anyway, for our purposes here we can assume that babies come in two flavours, male and female, and that statistically these appear in equal numbers.
Now lets get the easy, boring bit out of the way;
PART 1 - I have two children. One of them is a boy. What are the odds that the other is also a boy?
@CodingBadly I agree, but here we have rules. There are boy babies and girl babies born statistically at the same rate. So I have two children one is a boy what are the odds that the other is also a boy?
Come on this is the boring part, boy/girl lets move on.
Nick, Nick you are a "Brattain Member", come on, you are up there with Dr Spock, we want logical, correct, computer programmer thinking not wooly, nonsense. This is the easy part.
PART 1 - I have two children. One of them is a boy. What are the odds that the other is also a boy?
Are you really saying the odds are 50/50 ?
Nick - I would add, good on you for playing the game and taking a position.
P.S. would you like to take a bet on this $)
nope
you seek to imply that the birth of one child has an influence on the birth of the next
leaving aside genetic tendencies (our family only ever has boys, twins, kittens)
the odds for the 2nd child are the same as the odds for the first
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
ok so after 4 children what are the odds
by your logic you can't have more than 4
and even after three (if by then you have BBG)
there is still no guarantee that the fourth will complete the set
radman:
P.S. would you like to take a bet on this $)
You would need to test that with loads of mothers/kids to get an accurate result, If... you have a load of nice good looking moms to choose from and you're willing to raise the kids, I may be interested....
PART 1 - I have two children. One of them is a boy. What are the odds that the other is also a boy? @robtillaart correctly answered 1:3 or 33% (he also jumped the gun a bit on the next part)
So now onto the interesting bit; PART 2 - I have two children. One of them, the thinnest, is a boy. What are the odds that the other is also a boy?