The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

Does the mother's marital status determine the gender of the baby? Dr. Karen Norberg thinks so. Through extensive research, she claims that when mothers are unwed, there's a statistically deviation for slightly more boys being born than girls.

This is the kind of blog entry that most people put. They hear or read of an interesting article and say, now that's cool, I should blog about that. At first, I didn't understand the reason why. Bloggers often have little to add other then their incredulity to the article of interest. They often lack the expertise to say anything intelligent. Curiously, that's where I find myself on this article.

The only thing I can comment about is the general misunderstanding of statistics. If there's one thing the average American doesn't understand, it's statistics. I don't even mean complex stats, I mean even the simple stuff. For example, in this article about babies, they claim there are 106 males born for every 100 females. For unwed mothers, the ratio of boys to girls is just under 50% (say, 98 males for every 100 females).

The average person just hears statistically more likely and think it's some absolute certainty, and say "I know a single mom who has more boys than girls!", and yet, that's an incredibly small sample size. Statistical deviations are highly likely when you have tiny sample sizes.

For example, casinos make money because the odds are slightly in their favor to win. Even if you know plenty of people who have made money at casinos, overall casinos do better, and that's assuming those who go to casinos play to the best of their abilities (without resorting to, say, counting cards), which many people are unable to do.

There are two other issues that come up with regards to this single mother hypothesis. First, is it really valid? Others have hypothesized that chemicals in the environment may be to blame. After all, it does sound ludicrous that the gender of the baby is not solely determined by the male sperm, especially since this has been the widely held belief for many years.

The other issue is why do males outnumber females in the first place? Is the ratio already askew to begin with, or are there other factors at play? Even though it seems like a roll of the dice to be either a boy or a girl, there's something reassuring knowing that once the egg is fertilized, the gender is determined. If the gender does change, does that affect the physiology of the child?

And finally, is this one of those sensationalist articles by some crackpot scientist. One assumes not, because it's being reported in newspapers. I'd be curious to hear what other scientists in her field think.