3 ms·

What a great example of a seemingly simple question that can't be answered. The question sounds like an elegant and abstract question straight out of a mathema

What a great example of a seemingly simple question that can't be answered. The question sounds like an elegant and abstract question straight out of a mathematical textbook, but to answer it you need to start making assumptions about the the distribution of family sizes, which leads you to family planning and cultural differences. There is no way to solve this problem on a napkin. Why does everyone try to solve this problem from first principles? The best way to solve this problem would be to look at actual statistics! So now I wonder: Is there any publicly available census data that's detailed enough to answer this question? Or are there any public genealogical databases that might be helpful in answering this?

acbabis 10y ago
> Why does everyone try to solve this problem from first principles? Trying to solve the problem from first principles is probably how a lot of the posters came to the conclusion that it wasn't possible. If the problem were possible to solve from first principles, it would have been a waste of time to find/create data, so trying to solve it from first principles is the correct approach given no prior knowledge of the answer.
ewjordan 10y ago
Come on now - thought experiments about the sex of children always ignore the real world complications that make them different from a coin flip (stopping conditions, genetic predisposition, environmental effects, etc.). And after making those standard thought experiment assumptions, the problem is 100% napkin-worthy.