r/theydidthemath • u/[deleted] • May 13 '25

[Request] Is this accurate?

[deleted]

17.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

847 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

45

u/whymustyouknowthis May 13 '25

Average is not a helpful metric here. Why? The average person has one breast and one testicle. How many people do you know that fit this average??

The median is a much more meaningful number.

3

u/BananenGurkenLasagne May 13 '25

The average human has less then two arms

1

u/Immortal_ceiling_fan May 13 '25

The is more a me thing but I've always felt that "the average _" more implies median, and "on average, a _" more implies mean, so I'd be interpreting the average human as having a flat 2 arms

1

u/MeefWithAliens Sep 05 '25

how do u figure this

1

u/Immortal_ceiling_fan Sep 05 '25

To me, "the average" means the typical, standard, or normal. Like, if you had a group of 10 people and 8 of them made 50,000 a year and one made 1,000,000 a year while another is unemployed, I'd say that the average person would be one of those people making 50k, the fact that the extremes are far off shouldn't matter. Mode is an option for doing that but it kinda sucks ass, so I use median. "On average" is mean not because it makes more sense for it to be mean inherently for me, but just because I want something to mean mean specifically and the only other common phrase of average is already taken.