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From: ech@pyuxll.UUCP (Ned Horvath)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Simple Statistics Puzzle
Message-ID: <396@pyuxll.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Aug-83 13:36:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxll.396
Posted: Wed Aug 17 13:36:24 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Aug-83 00:03:00 EDT
References: <604@hou5d.UUCP>
Organization: American Bell, South Plainfield NJ
Lines: 15

Your three cabinets illustrates the same principle as the puzzle I use
to illustrate why I hate statisitcs:

	1. A family has two children; the older one is a boy.
	   What is the probability that both children are boys?

	2. A family has two children; at least one of them is a boy.
	   What is the probability that both children are boys?

The official answers to those two questions differ.  My theory is that
if something so simple defies my intuition, I had better stick to
empirical measurements of stochastic processes, because there is no way
I am going to analyze a real-world problem accurately...

=Ned=