Paul, why did you add also the cases with only boys or only girls? I thought you were looking for a 6/7 girl-boy or boy-girl proportion -- which would be only (7+7)/128 = 14/128 = 7/64 = 10.9375% chance. It still makes your point (one in every ten cases of 7 births should still happen to be of this kind), though, doesn't it?

But now, thinking about it -- I think the funny thing is that there were so many pregnancies in a movie set. Are we assuming every movie has 7 cases of pregnancy during its realization? I suppose we'd need to see how likely it is that someone gets pregnant during a movie (stats and probabilities anyone?) before we can calculate how rare 7 such pregnancies would be.

Very.

Hard to know, providing that they imbibed the water too, what hormonal agent/psuedo-estrogen flushed-down-the-toilet sort of thing might be in the water.

Or even something more along the pituitary axis.

That so...not much of a reach to hypothesize an agent to stimulate fertility per se. Or even the baby's gender.

. Hasn't she been punished enough for being married to Tom Cruise?

Not even Tom Fucking Cruise is good enough any more for these superior women all around us.

God help me, I am glad I remain single. I couldn't stand the constant JUDGEMENTALISM. No wonder so many married guys seem miserable all the time.

I guess that is why they call them 'gay' guys, because they really ARE happier.

haw haw haw

...she's making a joke along the lines of "there must be something in the water."

Shortly after my grandma's funeral, 3 of her 7 total granddaughters got pregnant. None of them were trying or even planning on having more children, and the youngest had gone through fertility treatment hell and at least one miscarriage to conceive the two she already had. We joke that it was Grandma zapping them from up in the sky.

I talked to some unrelated friends, and at two of them reported similar experiences after their own grandmothers' funerals--they and a couple of their cousins became unexpectedly pregnant shortly afterwards.

However, I reread what Ms. Marguilies wrote and I can only see the worst. Like:

"In case you've ever caught yourself wondering how someone as sane as Nicole Kidman could have married a wack job like Tom Cruise, wonder no more: Turns out, she's out of her mind, too." WACK ATTACK!

"Kidman disagrees. Who needs science when you can have legend?" SNARK ATTACK!

"Impenetrable logic, no doubt,..." SNARK FEEDING FRENZY!

and Ms Margulies has probably nothing against Nicole Kidman as a person or as an actress. She was probably just trying to have a quick laugh at some silly thing a pregnant woman said. The hormones, you know.

However, I also wish Ms Margulies hadn't done that. I actually quite like Ms Kidman, and I'm glad she is pregnant. The joke seems to make fun of that; it would be better not to do that. I must agree with the other posters: why do this, when there certainly are more interesting women's issues going on now?

7 women got pregnant? So 7 women were having unprotected sex while making a movie? Interesting. Any local factors? The water? Bast and Brightstar are already speculating about it; who knows, there is a remote chance that they might be right (though I wouldn't bet on it; I think Brightstar is going too far by just attributing it to liberal bias; it would indeed be surprising to find some important factor in the water). Hmmm... 7 pregnant women is certainly above the average for movies, right? Most movies have lots of women in their crews, but you don't get 7 of them pregnant so quickly? Does anyone have the Guinness book of records to check which movie got the highest number of women pregnant?

While I'd not want to place a bet on it, I'd want to know more before entirely saying that it's absolutely impossible.

First, what are the normal odds of 7 women getting pregnant within that time frame? Was it 7 out of 10 women or 7 out of 140? During the same time frame among a randomly selected group of the same ages, sexual activity, use of birth control or fertility enhancement, and health status, what is the typical pregnancy rate? What are the odds that 6 out of 7 such infants would be girls?

If that shows a statistical abnormality, then it would make sense to look at environmental factors related to the waterfall, as Brightstar suggested, also correcting for other environmental factors related to food shared by the crew, drinking water, etc. Does the local population show more female births than the odds would predict?

As Asimov said, the greatest discoveries aren't signaled by somebody saying "Eureka," but by somebody saying, "Hmmm, that's odd."

I agree with other posters. What you wrote is mean-spirited and better suited to TMZ or Perez Hilton.

Editors, what does this have to do with women's issues?

And mocking Tom Cruise takes no courage whatsoever. What are you going to mock next: mullets?

The moderator should delete what Ms. Margulies wrote.

It just looked like an instance in which p-values could shed some light on this claim, whether Kidman made it seriously or or in fun, or whether she said it at all.

I went and actually clicked on the follow through link. At no point was Kidman actually saying she went to the "fertility waters" to get pregnant. It was more along the lines of - Wow I thought it was never going to happen at my age and here I am, along with seven other women on the set. Must be the waterfalls . . . ha ha

Did you just read the headline and react? Nicole Kidman may have gotten pregnant by accident, or finally got pregnant after trying for years on purpose, either of which can be read into her statements, but accusing her of being a superstitious wack job on the basis of this interview is freaking cruel and irresponsible. Hasn't she been punished enough for being married to Tom Cruise?

If you're reading between the lines for idle gossip why don't you go there instead? At least commenting on her maternal advanced age pregnancy is tangentially related to women's issues.

Geez, this kind of stuff is gonna give ammo to the feminists and liberals can't take a joke crowd. Stop feeding the wingnuts . . . .