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"Half of all people are below average"

This topic can be found at:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/230601935/m/4220050724

July 13, 2017, 06:20 PM
Oz_Shadow
"Half of all people are below average"
If more than one person is exactly average wouldn't it be slightly less than half of all people are below average?
July 13, 2017, 08:14 PM
Skins2881
What if I'm above average, but still below par?


Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
July 13, 2017, 08:33 PM
Sig2340
quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
I don't understand the question.


Okay, you have six bananas.

You eat five bananas.

How many bananas have you had?

No using fingers or toes.




Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
July 14, 2017, 10:04 PM
jhe888
quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
quote:
Originally posted by ChuckFinley:
Amazing how many times in response to this statement someone will weigh in with, "Oh, it's at least 80% that are below average".


That's actually possible, if the upper 20% of the sample are drastically higher than the rest. Take for example a series of five numbers:

1, 2, 3, 4, and 25

The average of these numbers is 7. Yet 80% of the numbers are below that average. This occurs because 25 is drastically higher than the other numbers, which skews the average upward.

Similarly, if 80% of the sample were dumb and 20% of the population were very smart, with few people in-between, then it could be accurate to say that 80% of the people were below average intelligence.


This concept works the other way around, too. Take another series of five numbers:

1, 32, 33, 34, and 35

The average of these numbers is 27. Yet 80% of our sample are above average. The fact that 1 is much smaller than the other numbers skews the average downward.


You're also forgetting about situations in which something may be exactly average, neither above or below it. Here's yet another series of five numbers:

1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

The average is 3. So 40% of the numbers are below average, 20% are average, and 40% are above average. It's not split with 50% below average and 50% above average.

quote:
Originally posted by ChuckFinley:
How difficult could this statement be to understand?


Apparently it's not as easy as it seems. Wink


Except that intelligence is a bell curve. It is mathematically possible, but not actually possible.



The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
July 15, 2017, 02:40 AM
Rey HRH
Even using a perfect bell curve, it is not true that half of all people are below average.

People at the 50th percentile are NOT below average; they are EXACTLY average.

So less than half of all people are below average.


"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.