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Suppose there's 1 woman who had 10 kids, and everyone else had 3. Everyone then has max kids according to the "1 fewer than mother" rule. After 5 generations th
by Strilanc 4y ago
Suppose there's 1 woman who had 10 kids, and everyone else had 3. Everyone then has max kids according to the "1 fewer than mother" rule. After 5 generations that 1 woman has 10 * 9 * 8 * 7 * 6 * 5 = 151200 descendants that will each have 4 kids. Everyone else went extinct several decades ago. So the average number of children per woman increased from 3 to 4.
- Supermancho 4y ago> Everyone then has max kids according to the "1 fewer than mother" rule. 1 fewer is not the rule. The rule is "every woman has to have fewer children than her mother" There will be some whose mother had 10 then the daughter had 1. This narrative implies that every woman is having as many kids as possible all the time, which is both unrealistic and misleading by statistics. With a narrative sample size of one, the story is indicating that the number of people inevitably increased because of the rule rather than explaining this is an edge case paradox.
- cryptonector 4y agoYeah, but TFA then shows a graph of 1-fewer-than-mother.
- Supermancho 4y agoThat's the point. It's making an implicit assumption by graphing the maxima rather than demonstrating the range, making the paradox seem more likely than it is.
- cryptonector 4y agoBut after 10 generations they all go extinct.