bigjeff5 comments on Bayes' Theorem Illustrated (My Way) - Less Wrong

126 Post author: komponisto 03 June 2010 04:40AM

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Comment author: bigjeff5 22 December 2013 11:29:02PM *  1 point [-]

Wow.

I've seen that same explanation at least five times and it didn't click until just now. You can't distinguish between the two on tuesday, so you can only count it once for the pair.

Which means the article I said was wrong was absolutely right, and if you were told that, say one boy was born on January 17th, the chances of both being born on the same day are 1-(364/365)^2 (ignoring leap years), which gives a final probability of roughly 49.46% that both are boys.

Thanks for your patience!

ETA: I also think I see where I'm going wrong with the terminology - sampling vs not sampling, but I'm not 100% there yet.