Indrek Aavisto wrote:

Alan Minyard wrote:

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 04:22:37 GMT, "Gord Beaman" ) wrote:

"No Spam!" wrote:

Unfortunately, it's a little appreciated fact that half of the world's
population is below average in intelligence

I seem to be having trouble making sense out of this
statement...perhaps you could enlighten me please?...

Well, since the "average" is the mean, half will be
above it and half will be below it. Thus it is
correct to say "half of the world's population is below
average intelligence". How one goes about measuring
"intelligence" is a different kettle of fish.

Al Minyard

Perhaps the confusion arises from the definitions of "mean" and "median" The
terms are not necessarily synonymous. The mean, or average value of a population
is the sum of the values divided by the number of values in the population. The
median of a population of numbers arranged in order of size is the value that
has an equal number of values above it as below it.

Example: the average of the values 2, 3, 6, 8, 100 is (2+4+6+8+100)/5=24
The mean is 6 because there are two numbers more than six, and two numbers less
than six in the sample. Note that the average would also be six if the 100 were
to be replaced by a ten

Cheers

--
Indrek Aavisto
Sudbury, Ontario

"Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult" W. S. Churchill



Criticism is indeed easy; (Churchill loved semicolons).

The Average is the total of the values divided by the number of values -
in the example above it would be 23.8

The Mean is the value midway between the values of the smallest and
largest terms -
in the example above it would be 51

The Median is the middle value of a series arranged in order of size -
in the example above it would be 6

The Mode is the value which occurs most frequently in the set -
in the example above there is no mode.

All of which assumes we are talking arithmetic and not geometry or some
other subject.

Dave