Will I only get males?

[Shamu077 Resident]

(11-12-2014 05:19 PM)Sorcie Naxos Wrote:  I am a relatively new breeder, and am currently working with a male and female Siamese chocolate tortie. They just had their 4th baby and once again, its a male. My question is, are there some pairs who only produce a certain gender? I had another pair of cats who did this and I decided to split them up to other partners. But I really don't want to split these two because their fur is the most recessive.

Has anyone else had this issue?
Thanks!

Of course, most have had that issue. In my case one pure breeding pair and their offspring have been producing 4 boys for every 1 girl for the last 2 1/2 years and over 150 kittens. It is a continuing experiment for me - because data always trumps theory, or in this case, what someone has been told, and blindly accepts without the data to back it up. "A string of bad luck" is not science, and not the scientific method. That's all I will say for now - no reason to subject myself to ridicule based on statistically significant data.

If your "bad luck" with all boys continues, change one of the parents - there could be a reason that fixes your "bad luck".

[Tad Carlucci]

There is on 'reason' for a long string of males. Humans naturally want a 'cause' and will find one, even when none exists.

[Shamu077 Resident]

(11-18-2014 11:36 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  There is on 'reason' for a long string of males. Humans naturally want a 'cause' and will find one, even when none exists.

I can think of several reasons, and as a programmer so should you - but you would need to think outside your box.

If I was given a pair of dice, and I threw 800 snake eyes out of 1000 throws, I would look for a cause, as would any casino owner - loaded dice have been around for eons.
You would tell the casino owner the dice are balanced and it was just a long string of luck, as he tossed you out on the street and banned you from playing there again

Experiments creating statistically significant data are never ignored by scientists.

[Vrem Vaniva]

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc : I did the Moo Moo dance. and immediately afterwards, received a Chateau Black and White No. 1 Kitten (a "moo kitty") -- therefore, the Moo Moo dance causes the birth of Moo Kitties.

I changed my cats' partners and they switched from making all males to all females ... therefore, the cat's choice of partner affects the gender of its offspring.

I chanted "Mega mega mega" for six hours, and the next day received a Megapuss. Therefore the "Mega mega mega " chant causes the birth of megapusses.
A cat walked under a ladder, and for the rest of the day, I had bad luck. Therefore, letting cats walk under ladders leads to bad luck. I also broke a mirror and that led to seven years of bad luck.

On the other hand ... I gave my kitties Milk and they went from producing 1 kitten every 10 days, to producing 1 kitten every 7 days. Therefore, Milk causes an increase in the speed of love-gaining (this one is true cause -->effect.)

Hm, if we had info that "600 people did the Moo Moo Dance and all of them received Moo kitties" ... that would mean something *grin* (of course, it ain't going to happen unless the parents have moo-kitty genes that haven't been bred out. )

(Moral: we try hard to distinguish between "cause -->effect" and "first A happened, and then B happened". ) (I don't approve of false "cause -- >effect" rumors / beliefs ... but I still defend the free choice available to SL residents to choose their own paths in SL, and if it involves a preference for intuition over rationality ... well, we are here to be free of some of the constraints of RL ... so let's just enjoy the diversity of our friends' thinking styles -- each is "one of a kind.")

Ah, it just occurs to me that ... SL gives one an opportunity to be a really really dumb person. In fact there are whole groups for that -- some of my friends, even, have "dumb blonde " groups listed in their profiles! It lets people take a vacation from having to be smart all the time.

[Shamu077 Resident]

(11-19-2014 02:36 AM)Vrem Vaniva Wrote:  Ah, it just occurs to me that ... SL gives one an opportunity to be a really really dumb person. In fact there are whole groups for that -- some of my friends, even, have "dumb blonde " groups listed in their profiles! It lets people take a vacation from having to be smart all the time.

While a select few in this group take apparent amusement in ignoring data, I will continue to run my 2 1/2 year old experiment with the same pure line - after all in time it should all even out - since the gender weight for each cat is identical, right?

I am just a dumb old experimental physicist who used their PhD to run experiments and publish papers about solid state phenomenon that theorists did not understand or have a valid theory for. Statistical analysis of data is something everyone must do before publishing, since peer review looks for gaps in one's reasoning. So I would not be expected to understand the trivial algorithms for pixel cats, and the data that a long term controlled experiment can produce. Silly me.

[Tad Carlucci]

So, take that random sample of 800 out of 1000 throws of a pair of fair dice. As a researcher, you claim that would cause you to examine the fairness of the dice, rather than your pre-conditions. It seems to me that the problem was the researcher asking for the wrong dataset. You say you wanted 'random' but, when presented with 'random' discarded the data because what you really wanted was 'normal distribution'

What most claims of bias in gender boil down to is the simple statement, "Having looked at the offspring of pairs which did not fit my expectation I find that most do not fit fit expectations. Therefore the expectations were incorrect."

Or, in terms of your dice, "Having thrown millions of pairs, I was able to locate a series of 1000 throws which produced 800 snake-eyes. Therefore the entire series of millions of throws was not random." When, in fact, the converse would be true .. had the series not appeared, we might suspect the entire dataset was not random.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

*Kayleigh McMillan thinks poor OP

[Vrem Vaniva]

(11-19-2014 06:23 AM)Shamu077 Resident Wrote:  

(11-19-2014 02:36 AM)Vrem Vaniva Wrote:  Ah, it just occurs to me that ... SL gives one an opportunity to be a really really dumb person. In fact there are whole groups for that -- some of my friends, even, have "dumb blonde " groups listed in their profiles! It lets people take a vacation from having to be smart all the time.

While a select few in this group take apparent amusement in ignoring data, I will continue to run my 2 1/2 year old experiment with the same pure line - after all in time it should all even out - since the gender weight for each cat is identical, right?

I am just a dumb old experimental physicist who used their PhD to run experiments and publish papers about solid state phenomenon that theorists did not understand or have a valid theory for. Statistical analysis of data is something everyone must do before publishing, since peer review looks for gaps in one's reasoning. So I would not be expected to understand the trivial algorithms for pixel cats, and the data that a long term controlled experiment can produce. Silly me.

I didn't mean my statement as poking fun at science, Shamu. Your position is the one I consider correct, and absolutely yours is the data I'll believe when planning my pixel cat breedings. (Or, that is, data gathered and analyzed by people with expertise of the kind you have -- , who know what they're doing and how to analyze such data.)
I guess I just want to encourage -- running concurrently with respect for the science of trivial algorithms -- a respect and sympathy for those who come to SL to act silly, who indulge in "a willing suspension of rationality."

If I want my cats to turn out as good as they possibly can though, I'll go with the smart-people's methods.

[Shamu077 Resident]

(11-19-2014 07:38 PM)Vrem Vaniva Wrote:  If I want my cats to turn out as good as they possibly can though, I'll go with the smart-people's methods.

I might add that all the cats, boxes, live and retired in my pedigree (over 1000) show a roughly 50% distribution of boys and girls. If they did not, and other large breeder collections did not, then KC would need to explain. That is not my argument at all.

However, I just birthed another Mega 9T Vampire kitty, my 2nd in 2 months - and this must be a payoff from KC for me to shut up, since I am only breeding one pair a week now!

Oh, and did I add that the Mega was from a teacup and another Mega Vamp parents? Well that's just luck, I would not want to encourage the size conspirators.

The last time I complained about something to KC, I got 2 diamonds in a week. So yes, I am easily bribed. More diamonds please, and I will destroy all my data.

---

In case you think I am making this up:

[Shamu077 Resident]

(11-19-2014 09:50 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  So, take that random sample of 800 out of 1000 throws of a pair of fair dice. As a researcher, you claim that would cause you to examine the fairness of the dice, rather than your pre-conditions. It seems to me that the problem was the researcher asking for the wrong dataset. You say you wanted 'random' but, when presented with 'random' discarded the data because what you really wanted was 'normal distribution'

What most claims of bias in gender boil down to is the simple statement, "Having looked at the offspring of pairs which did not fit my expectation I find that most do not fit fit expectations. Therefore the expectations were incorrect."

Or, in terms of your dice, "Having thrown millions of pairs, I was able to locate a series of 1000 throws which produced 800 snake-eyes. Therefore the entire series of millions of throws was not random." When, in fact, the converse would be true .. had the series not appeared, we might suspect the entire dataset was not random.

Not sure you understood my assumptions. I never assumed the data set was random, or the dice were fair. If you assume the data is from a true unbiased random set, that no unequal weights have been applied to the probability of an event, then what you say would be true. But that is an extreme case of researcher bias. Also we are not talking about strings, but the total occurrences of each event, no matter what their order or position in the data set might be. If you were given a set of dice by a casino owner, and asked to determine if they were fair or biased, I do not think you would tell him they were fair and not loaded after testing them a statistically significant number of times, because all dice are fair - and that the dealer and his accomplice were just experiencing a string of really good luck that cleaned out the casinos's bank account.

Of course it might be easier to stick the dice under a scanning electron microprobe and observe the higher density weights inside the dice. ( Heavy metals will backscatter more electrons than the organic plastic of the dice, and show up as bright areas with the right preparation.)

In the case of gender, instead of assuming gender weights are equal, consider weighted random number generation for each cat when first born in the database, and those weighted numbers represented gender weight. The overall distribution of gender for all cats would still be 50% and appear random, while each cat could still have a gender weight, say between 0.10 and 0.90, with 0.50 being the dividing line between males and females. In other words think outside your random box, and find another way the gender bias for a particular breeding pair could happen, and continure to happen, for many generations. Two and 1/2 years for one Pure breeding pair and their pure offspring in my experiment.