Is Mathematical pedanticism allowed in here?

[CouldIBEAnyMoreChaotic]

"Out of every £5 you spend £1 goes to the government."

Erm, no.

(Seen on a leaflet justifying price-hikes at a Cafe today.)

[cross]

Cobblers! X-post!

Average intelligence could be defined any number of ways - who says it's the 25th-75th centile?

Most intelligence tests define "average" as being within a standard deviation or something, which on a bell curve works out at 25-75%.

,worries now that she has got her figures wrong. But knows it is SOMETHING like that....>

What did the zero say to the eight?

"Nice belt!"

(a bit more on my intellectual level)

Double pedantry, but when I heard that joke, the punchline was 'at least one side of which appears to be black.

Jeez, prism, how did we manage that? Of all the jokes, in all the world...

I'll let you tell the one about the pilot having a heart attack and the cabin crew asking for help, and an old RAF Polish squadron pilot trying to help out...

Just gone and checked my statistics. Actually, by a standard definition of "average intelligence" 68% of the population are within one standard deviation of 100, which means only 16% are classified as above average. Although some people to split the 68% into "high average" and "low average" etc.

But yes, "normal intelligence", and thus the average, is a range within which the majority of the population fit.

Yes but oakmaiden that may be a common definition but it's still only one definition.

Clearly your father's joke relies on a different definition of average - ie the mean or the median rather than your definition of "within normal parameters"

Doesn't mean he's wrong per se. And anyway, it's funny

besides which, I'm presuming your definition uses IQ testing (since you refer to 100 as being the average) - which is, again, only one way of measuring intelligence.

Plenty of other definitions of intelligent. Your dad can define his parameters how he likes. Doesn't mean he's wrong.

And again - average is NOT the same as normal. It depends on which definition of average you are using.

The mean average number of legs is about 1.999 or something. That is definitely not the "normal" number.

Yeah, I guess not the way he tells it though! It normally is part of a rant about "stupid bloody motorists"... or dogwalkers... or campers... or tourists... or whatever has got up his nose that day.

I guess it just bugs me a bit that if you use the 50% mark as the average mark for intelligence you are categorising 50% of the population to be below average. I know it is semantics, but I think most people are just normal - not many are sufficiently different to be "below average" or "above average" (particularly if you interpret average as "normal"...)

well 50% of the results of any quantifiable survey are below average by most definitions of average. It's not a value judgement. It's a function of maths.

But yes, I guess that's why they use the definition they do, because most people take average to mean the norm, rather than an expression of a specific mathematical point on a scale.

If you were going to be uber pedantic you could say

"10% of people are below average intelligence but 50% of people fall below THE average".

Interesting that your Dad clearly assumes he's on the right side of "average"! There was a fascinating programme on More or Less, I think, where they looked at the "above average" phenomenon. Like, if you question people, about 70% of people consider themselves to be better than average drivers. Clearly this is not possible.

And about 50% of parents are in favour of grammar schools for their children, whereas most selective schools only take the top 20% of results. This means that the majority of parents in favour of grammar schools would actually find their children were not entitled to go.

It's also called the Lake Wobegon syndrome - from the Garrison Keiler stories. You know, Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

"The mean average number of legs is about 1.999 or something. That is definitely not the "normal" number."

Depends who you're including. If you include every creature on earth I wonder what it would be? Surely around 6.

Blimey, no I just checked my figures on the driving thing - it was 70% in Sweden but in the US an astonishing 93% of drivers consider themselves to be better than average!!

Just goes to show - there are a lot of people with inflated ideas out there. Not me, naturally. I have above average self-perception

oh sorry Stealth. I was meaning humans with the leg thing

I think if you included every creature on earth it would probably be incredibly low actually, because of the number of fish and single-celled organisms without any legs at all.

oh yes i had forgotten about that.
Really wish I could figure it out - suppose I need percentages for each species and then work it from there. Insects are the most prevalent group but they're just a single group. Might look into it - watch this space
urgh...if insects have 6 legs by definition, what are centipedes, other than creepy?

When VAT went to 20%, our work canteen raised prices by 20% and blamed the VAT increase!

lol

Can I be Humphrey Bogart, Tianc? I have the mac. I have to ask you, if I may- which one laughed?

The mathmo. The other two smirked uneasily.

Maybe it's just the way I tell 'em...

Mr & Mrs Adder had been married for some time, but just didn't seem to be able to have children. They went to the Doctor to seek advice. The Doctor listened to their story, examined them and announced that he knew what they needed to do. "You need to buy a rustic wooden garden table and put it in your garden" The Adders looked quizzical, but with no better offer, off they set to buy a rustic wooden garden table.

Only days later, Mrs Adder became pregnant. Mr & Mrs Adder were astounded, and returned to the Doctor, to thank him, and ask him how it had happened. "Oh, it has obvious", he said, " I worked out that adders can only multiply with the help of log tables"

While we're on mathematician jokes;

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician were on a train, crossing the border into Scotland. They saw a black sheep in a nearby field.
The engineer said "I see all sheep in Scotland are black"
The physicist said "I see there is at least one sheep in Scotland which is black"
The mathematician said "Scotland contains at least one sheep, one side of which appears black"

It's geeky, but funny nonetheless

Did you hear about the constipated mathematician?

He worked it out with a pencil.

F(x) walks into a bar.
The barman says, "I'm sorry sir, we don't serve functions."

Here's one for the parenting boards:
Q: How does a mathematician induce good behavior in her children?
A: `I've told you n times, I've told you n+1 times...'

There are three commonly used measures of central tendency;
the mean (this is what most statisticians understand by the average) this is the sum of all values divided by the population size. Only if the distribution is not skewed and the variable is continous will you have half the population above and half below.
the median - this is the value in the middle and yes in this one half will be above and half will be below
the mode; this is the most frequently occuring value

so with the number of legs example
the mean will may 1.9
the median will be 2 (more than half the population have 2 legs)
the mode will also be 2 (more people have 2 legs rather than one or zero)

In the special case of a variable that is normally distributed the mean, mode and median will all be the same