• Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    This cracks me up because it is often said with such confidence, but it is just wrong.

    If you have 10 people, 8 have an intelligence score of 1, 1 has a score of 5 and 1 has a score of 10. The average is 2.3 which means that 80% of the people are below average.

    The median is the only thing that is going to guarantee 50%.

    • bouh@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      On a bell curve the average and mean are the same. Your example isn’t a bell curve. Many things will be a bell curve.

    • candybrie@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      People who don’t know that average can be mean, median or mode depending on the context crack me up.

      • DrDr@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Average is the mean, not median or mode. This doesn’t change on context. Average is always mean.

        • candybrie@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          No. It’s not.

          a single value (such as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values

          Source

          Depending on the context, the most representative statistic to be taken as the average might be another measure of central tendency, such as the mid-range, median, or mode.

          Source