0.o

[glass_icarus]

Dear circle, a question!

Poll #8325

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 47

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If you saw a problem that said "What is the probability that of three children, all are girls or boys?", would you interpret as:

View Answers

all = "girls or boys"
10 (21.3%)

"all girls OR all boys"
37 (78.7%)

(also, yes, gender-binary, I know.)

Comments

*is massive pedant*

[rydra_wong]

I would guess that (in a general academic context) the problem-setter meant the latter, but would be grumpy about this because what they said was the former.

Then I would get distracted by trying to calculate the answer to the former based on estimates of the percentage of intersex and genderqueer people in the population, before giving up in disgruntlement at the lack of good statistics (not to mention the inevitable fuzziness of categories, many intersex people being binary-gendered, etc. etc.).

Finally, if the problem-setter did indeed mean the latter, I would hope very much that they were not in charge of teaching formal logic.

Re: *is massive pedant*

[happydork]

Hah! Yes, this! :)

Re: *is massive pedant*

[branewurms]

Lol, yes, this is what I was thinking, and I'm not even an academic.

Re: *is massive pedant*

[glass_icarus]

HEEE, &hearts &hearts! Granted that I hadn't had tea at the time I did the pset, but this is why I went "..." and answered that the probability was 1, thinking that the person was referring to the set of "all" possibilities (as stats problems in this class never deal with non-binary genders). And then got cranky when upon checking my answers, the solution was a fraction. xD

Re: *is massive pedant*

[odditycollector]

+1

*belatedly*

[rydra_wong]

AND ALSO:

Even on the latter interpretation and assuming binary gender, there is not a 50-50 girl-boy chance, because the human sex ratio is not even at birth.

Re: *belatedly*

[makamu]

+2

[boundbooks]

I would assume that the writer intended the second, but the first is the technically correct interpretation. :)

[surpassingly]

So badly phrased! But yeah, what boundbooks said, simply because the first option is too "easy" and probability questions almost never seek a 1 or 0 answer.

[glass_icarus]

Ahah, if I see similar phrasing on tomorrow's exam & my brain doesn't turn on all the way/it takes forever to ask for clarification, I am just going to say fuck it and write BOTH ANSWERS.

[whymzycal]

I'd assume the second (depending on the context of the question being asked) because that would be the default interpretation for most disciplines, but the first one would, as boundbooks says, be the technically correct interpretation.