Timeline for Google question: In a country in which people only want boys
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 13, 2013 at 20:47 | comment | added | user112109 | The question asks about the ratio of boys and girls and not about the mean value of averages in families. My own treatment and my recognition of this fact should show anybody that I am very interested in this question. I attribute your insulting manner to the fact that you recognize to have lost against Lubos Motl (who, as a Harvard string theorist, is certainly not less than you able to understand the simple error made by Douglas and accepted by you). | |
| May 13, 2013 at 20:19 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | Rhett Butler: The question asks about the ratio of boys to girls, not about the ratio of expected boys to expected girls. You ask why the ratio should interest anyone. I suggest you address that query to the person who posed the question, not the people who answered it. PS. Since it's been well established elsewhere that you're not the least bit interested in the question that was posed, or any of the interesting subsidiary questions that it raises, but only in blustering and hurling insults, I won't be responding to any followups. | |
| May 13, 2013 at 20:02 | comment | added | user112109 | You ask: "But what is the expected fraction of girl-births?" Why should this number interest anyone who cares whether familiy planning can influence the population equilibrium? or "what fraction of the population is female?". Even if it is made crystal clear that average of fractions is not equal to the fraction of average, this does not entitle anybody to chose the wrong number. | |
| Jan 4, 2011 at 5:40 | comment | added | T.. | Ratios versus differences doesn't address the main point, which is whether the family reproduction rule can break boy/girl symmetry in the underlying distribution of $(B,G)$. [It does gender-asymmetrize the allocation of boys and girls into sets called "families", but this extra structure does not play a role in the calculation requested by Google.] If the distribution is symmetrical then the proportion of girls will have expected value 1/2, because the random variables "proportion of girls" and "proportion of boys" will have the same probability distribution, and their sum is equal to 1. | |
| Dec 21, 2010 at 23:40 | history | answered | Steven Landsburg | CC BY-SA 2.5 |