Toronto Star

STICKELERS

- BY TERRY STICKELS

If a family has two children and the older child is a girl, there is a 50 percent chance this family has two girls. But what if I make the following statement?

“In a family with two children, we know that one child is a girl. What is the probabilit­y the second child is a girl?”

Is this statement equivalent to the first statement? Is the probabilit­y still 50 percent or a different percentage?

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada