The kid is learning about biological anthropology for science right now and we just got to the section on genetic drift.

Since it is a college text book we’re using, he needed a little help with some examples of the definitions in the book. One definition was about sampling errors and the book used the classic 10 flipped coins as an example (since I’m not teaching the kid statistics and probability till the end of his math book- this example left him confused).

Me: So imagine you are an alien and you are trying to learn about people by watching tv shows.

Kid: Ok

Me: You know how so many things use the 2 guys and a girl set up.

Kid: Oh yeah- I hate that.

Me: Well if you were an alien you would think that men outnumbered women 2 to 1 because that is the dominant example you see on TV. But you’d be wrong,because women are actually closer to 52% of the population.

Kid: Ohhh that’s a serious sampling error.