Naked Science Forum

General Science => General Science => Topic started by: thedoc on 04/11/2014 23:40:16

Title: Do you experience lots of coincidences?
Post by: thedoc on 04/11/2014 23:40:16
David Spiegelhalter discusses why seemingly unlikely
events
occur all the time- although not often to him!
Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1000984/)

or [chapter podcast=1000898 track=14.11.04/Naked_Scientists_Show_14.11.04_1002892.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) Listen to it now[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/14.11.04/Naked_Scientists_Show_14.11.04_1002892.mp3)
Title: Re: Do you experience lots of coincidences?
Post by: CliffordK on 04/11/2014 21:05:20
What I will say is that one notices things that seem out of the ordinary, but they may not be as uncommon as one might think. 

And, the odd events become more noticeable and memorable. 

So, thinking of the sex of children in genetics. 
For a family with 2 children, half of the families will have a boy and a girl.  But, half will also have either 2 boys, or 2 girls.  It is not necessary to postulate a "predisposition" to have boys or girls for such a random event.

Even with 4 children, 1/16 will have 4 boys, and 1/16 will have 4 girls, or 1/8 of the families will have all same sex children. 

What about 10 children?  1/1000 families with 10 children will have all boys, and 1/1000 will have all girls.  Certainly not an impossible coincidence.  Random events could account for the numbers with no supernatural components.