Who's Counting: Do Summer Births Mean More Boy Births?

During my summer hiatus from Who's Counting, a fascinating new paradox, first noticed by puzzle-meister Gary Foshee, became widely known. The following variant of it suggests that summer births may be associated with a much increased likelihood of boy births. Before I get to this paradoxical result, let me put it into context with two simple probability problems. The first is very straightforward. Assume you know that a woman has two children, the older of whom is a boy. Given this knowledge,...Full Story