The funniest thing about this joke is that with just a bit more education, the audience would be able to recognise it isn't true.
Half of all people are dumber than median.
If you've got 7 billion people with equal intelligence and then 1 genius comes along, you've suddenly got 7 billion people who are below average and 1 who's above.
This is why national salaries are listed by the median value and not the average; the 1% drag the average up so it's not useful for comparing anything.
Colloquia. Also, everyone. "Average" just means "whatever measure of central tendency is most appropriate for this particular situation." You only think it means arithmetic mean because that is the type of average that you are most familiar with seeing.
It has exactly one meaning. "Whichever measure of central tendency is most appropriate in this situation." The "three meanings" you are talking about are median, mode, and mean, the last of which can mean four of more different things.
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u/Glaselar Dec 19 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
The funniest thing about this joke is that with just a bit more education, the audience would be able to recognise it isn't true.
Half of all people are dumber than median.
If you've got 7 billion people with equal intelligence and then 1 genius comes along, you've suddenly got 7 billion people who are below average and 1 who's above.
This is why national salaries are listed by the median value and not the average; the 1% drag the average up so it's not useful for comparing anything.