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kay · 31-01-2011, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by

In article ,
Martin lid wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:13:19 +0000, kay wrote:

But I think the time could be better spent.

Teaching statistics to 6-8 year olds?

Or probability, at least. There isn't a problem doing that, and
most will learn it readily.

For example, just recently
I've seen two newspapers make the same mistake - in the one case, a
couple had just had their third child, and all three children had been
born on the same date, the chances of which, according to the newspaper,
were "an astonishing 48 million to 1".

It would be astonishing if it were true, but the right answer is about
133 thousand to 1.

It wasn't the newspaper that was wrong. The Daily Mail quoted a professor of
Pure Mathematics

And what evidence do you have that the Daily Wail quoted him
correctly? My money is on a misquotation.
.

Or maybe they asked him the wrong question?

What is the probability of the three children being born on May 5th (or whatever the date is)?

rather than

What is the probability of the three children being born on the same day?