Seeing as this is currently breaking Facebook…

you can reduce m-f or f-m to one option but probability can’t do that.

Riiiiight… so “Probability” is that pesky maths stuff but “Chance” is made up rules that match your gut intuition and gambler’s fallacy? 😃

You can merge two possible scenarios into one with probability, but you have to recognise that this increases the probability that it will happen.

As stated before, the probability of getting a mixed pair (either MF or FM) is twice that of a MM pair.

It’s one in three, I’m a professional mathematician and have been doing this sort of calculation for decades but most people are too simple-minded to understand it, sorry. The correct answers (there have been many) are correct.

Mathematician thinking this is a mathematical calculations riddle and making mistaken assumptions shock!!!

This is an English language riddle and understanding the very carefully crafted wording is the key.

(25+ year as a business analyst spent trying to get developers to do what the business needs them to do, not what developers assumes needs doing)

What’s your favourite Revel?

No one likes the sub-Minstrels in there, do they?

and probability introduces a time component (ie the experiment is repeated)

How do you reach that conclusion?  You roll a die, what’s the probability that it’s a 6?  One experiment, not repeated, with a probability.

for any one instance, this is a binary choice and the second dog is either male or female so for this one instance I don’t agree with your assertion that “one of each” is twice as likely to occur as MM…

Then you’d be wrong.  We’ve already established this – and the 50%ers have agreed – over multiple pages.

There is no “second dog,” there is two dogs.  They could be any permutation of MM, MF or FM.  The only way this breaks is if you arbitrarily assign a definition to one specific dog, and nowhere in the puzzle is this suggested.

Mathematician thinking this is a mathematical calculations riddle and making mistaken assumptions shock!!!

Which assumptions are mistaken?

This is an English language riddle and understanding the very carefully crafted wording is the key.

I thought the consensus was that it was badly worded.  My mistake.

A lot of these puzzles are imperfectly worded (Monte hall is the classic) but this one seemed pretty unambiguous to me. In suppose you could claim the setup was not the obvious one if you’re desperate to do so but it is also a common maths puzzle (and challenging enough) when presented clearly.

I’m a professional mathematician and have been doing this sort of calculation for decades

Great so you can explain how:

Chances that both are boys

Chances that the other one is male and,

Chances that the other one is also male

Lead to vastly different mathemtical solutions.  Since at some point in this thread the OP stated he/she/they/them changed the wording of the question.

Then we can move in to discussing something less controversial like how helmets do or don’t prevent unnecessary cruelty to budgies.

12 pages? Good grief.  Statistics is a well defined and exact discipline resting on hundreds of years of work.  It’s not a matter of opinion!

Can’t decide who is trolling, who still genuinely doesn’t get this and who just hasn’t read the previous posts. 😂

Since at some point in this thread the OP stated he/she/they/them changed the wording of the question.

I changed the wording from “what are the odds that the other is male” to “what are the odds that both are male” because I felt that as it stood it was (deliberately?) misleading.  The rest of the puzzle is broadly as I found it.

I’ve been an ardent 1/3er from the start or this thread. But….I can see a sort of scenario or way of looking at this where you could conceive and 50% result as legitimate.

If we view this as we are witnessing an unfolding event where the wife could have said ‘sorry no, they are both girls’ but it just didn’t play out that way the 1/3 result is obviously the correct one.

If we are however witnessing an engineered event where the wife will always answer yes so the final question can be asked where you ensure one dog is male when you set it up then the 50% result is the correct one.

The first scenario is to my mind at least the correct way to approach the problem. The second one is a bit daft. But I do now acknowledge it is a way of looking at the problem.

where you ensure one dog is male when you set it up then the 50% result is the correct one.

Only if you do that by specially selecting the initial population to give an equal amount of mixed-sex and all-male pairs.

But there is no suggestion of any shenanigans like that in the question.

Changed the question! Thats cheating.

Were you answering the question that he didn’t ask @ctk? 🤪

you can check this yourself by tossing a pair of coins…

You’re late – the other tossers are about 3 pages back!

😀

What’s your favourite Revel?

The peanut one. This is mainly due to the fact that an old school friend is allergic to them and when drunk would play Revel roulette. There was a 50% chance that 1/3 of the time he’d have breathing difficulties.

When are we starting on the original, unedited question then? Maybe that should be a separate thread…

The original is buried way back with a link to the formula but the 52% don’t trust experts.

A shopkeeper says she has two new baby beagles to show you, but she doesn’t know whether they’re both male, both female, or one of each. You tell her that you want only a male, and she telephones the fellow who’s giving them a bath. “Is at least one a male?” she asks him. She receives a reply. “Yes!” she informs you with a smile. What is the probability that the other one is a male?

I tend to agree with Cougar that the wording in that one is poorer as it doesn’t make it as clear which probability they are actually asking for.

For me it’s easier to understand. 🤨

In changing the wording, the OP changed the question.  The only way these riddles “trick” you into getting them wrong is the very careful wording.  Changing the wording in this case makes the “right” solution wrong.

This riddle has been passed around the internet a lot and moved further and further from the original each time.  The most glaring and easily understandable change is from “what are the chances of the other one being male” to “what are the chances of the other one also being male”

It’s likethee difference between what are the chances of ending up with 6 numbers in a lottery draw vs. the chances of ending up with your 6 numbers in a lottery draw.

In changing the wording, the OP changed the question.

It doesn’t it just seems to confuse people but so does the original.

12 pages!! You guys are my **** heros!

Mathematician thinking this is a mathematical calculations riddle and making mistaken assumptions shock!!!

Which assumptions are mistaken?

That the population of this board is exclusively mathematicians? There could well be a significant number of Eng Lit students who study the story and do a different type of analysis, or ‘people’ people who apply Real Life  experiences to their critical thinking….for example.

Lol: I’m seeing adverts from the Alzheimer’s Association now…is that a co-incidence??

I’m always impressed by how much people can argue over the Monty Hall problem.

It’s fairly simple to test it yourself if you don’t believe the ‘mathematical’ solution.

I’m always impressed by how much people can argue over the Monty Hall problem.

I can see how people miss it. They concentrate on there just being 2 doors forgetting what information they have and can work out.

Argh! Why do I keep looking at this thread!

There could well be a significant number of Eng Lit students who study the story and do a different type of analysis, or ‘people’ people who apply Real Life  experiences to their critical thinking….for example.

It’s a problem rooted in mathematics, it’s like saying we’ll agree to disagree about the answer to 1+2, there’s no ‘real life experience’ angle to it.

The most glaring and easily understandable change is from “what are the chances of the other one being male” to “what are the chances of the other one also being male”

But as far as I can see, neither Cougar’s OP text or the original stated here use that “also” phrase at all.

Cougar’s said: “What is the chance there are two boys?”

And this one said “What is the probability that the other one is a male?”

So are you complaining about a question phrasing that wasn’t put to you here on the grounds that it was stated badly elsewhere on the Internet??

Changing the wording in this case makes the “right” solution wrong.

The right answer in both of our cases as stated here is 1 in 3 or 0.33333333…

Wow. Just wow! Anyone who is still arguing against 1/3 is beyond hope. One page 1 sockpuppet did not just explain why it was 1/3, he essentially provided a mathematical proof – using the method of exhaustion. There is no further debate to be had. It is as definitely 1/3, as anything else you hold to be true.

Mathematician thinking this is a mathematical calculations riddle and making mistaken assumptions shock!!!

This is an English language riddle and understanding the very carefully crafted wording is the key.

(25+ year as a business analyst spent trying to get developers to do what the business needs them to do, not what developers assumes needs doing)

You maybe should have thought twice about posting this. It does not paint business analysts in a good light!

Speaking as a developer of 25+ years, it paints Business Analysts in exactly the light I expect. 😂

Maybe leave the number stuff to the engineers?

boys != male puppies

FFS, 12 pages. Very impressed.

12 pages? Good grief. Statistics is a well defined and exact discipline resting on hundreds of years of work. It’s not a matter of opinion!

What’s that old quote Moly? Something something damned lies and statistics?

Statistics can say exactly what you want them to depending on how you select your data, no wonder this is a 12 pager! If you wanted it to be concise you would use facts instead 😉

Evening once more.

Interesting that all the 1/3ers have ignored the point I made about how you use the new information, with the exception of convert who is nearly there but too entrenched to admit he is wrong even though he might understand it.

This isn’t a maths problem, the maths is simple. It’s a philosophical problem about how you use information.

If you check the sex of one dog, and then check the sex of the other, then 1/3 is the correct answer.

Unfortunately, this does not describe the problem.

One dog is male, one dog is either, and it doesn’t matter which one is which.

It is interesting to see how the different “personality types” manage or fail to deal with this idea, though I am surprised so many are struggling with (or plain ignoring) it. 🙂

depending on how you select your data

Getting closer!

As an example of a glaring and easily understood nature, which demonstrates what happens when you make seemingly inconsequential changes without grasping that they change the fundamental underlying assumptions of the problem.  It isn’t about math or stats.  It is logic and language.  You can put whatever numbers you like into a spreadsheet and prove your answer but if you’ve read the question wrong it won’t help in the least.

@sbob: I didn’t ignore it. I tried creating a new model from the position of knowing that it is not a female-female pair, as you suggested, and I got the same 1/3 result.

You also said try calling them Ishmael and Leslie. I responded to that but you have cunningly ignored it.

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/seeing-as-this-is-currently-breaking-facebook/page/11/#post-10333361

I wonder what the overlap is between people that think it is 50:50 and people that think the plane on the conveyor can’t fly?

If you check the sex of one dog, and then check the sex of the other, then 1/3 is the correct answer.

Getting closer!