A man has five children - all girls. He dreams of a son, an heir! Now his wife is pregnant again. Let’s skip the psychology behind all this and focus on the probabilities.
Emotionally, it feels like after five girls in a row, a boy is due. Surely, the odds of finally having a son are much higher now.
But this is a textbook example of the gambler’s fallacy - the false belief that if something happens repeatedly, the opposite is bound to happen soon. That’s not how probability works.
According to math, the chance of having exactly five girls in a row followed by another girl is 1 in 64, or about 1.6%. But those five girls are already here. The only thing that matters now is the next birth.
And the odds of having a boy? Still 50/50. Every birth is an independent event (assuming randomness), so the previous outcomes don’t change the next one.
So yes, there’s still a 50% chance they’ll have another girl.
Emotionally, it feels like after five girls in a row, a boy is due. Surely, the odds of finally having a son are much higher now.
But this is a textbook example of the gambler’s fallacy - the false belief that if something happens repeatedly, the opposite is bound to happen soon. That’s not how probability works.
According to math, the chance of having exactly five girls in a row followed by another girl is 1 in 64, or about 1.6%. But those five girls are already here. The only thing that matters now is the next birth.
And the odds of having a boy? Still 50/50. Every birth is an independent event (assuming randomness), so the previous outcomes don’t change the next one.
So yes, there’s still a 50% chance they’ll have another girl.