Talk:Average
From Academic Kids
Good, glad to see that this is no longer a redirect. It should never have been a redirect to arithmetic mean. At the least it should discuss the median, the mode and the subtle misuse of averages of "convenient" types in advertising and propaganda. -- Derek Ross
- Yip, I'll be sure to cite How to lie with statistics in the further information section. ;-) --snoyes 02:53 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)
- Excellent! My favourite book on arithmetic! -- Derek Ross
A mean is only one particular type of average. A weighted average could refer to a weighted median as well, so I don't think that a redirect is the right solution to use for the weighted average article. -- Derek Ross
Properties of Median
"Also note that 1/2 of the scores, namely{1,2,2}, have values <= median and the other half, namely{2,3,9}, have values >= median"
This is not true, 1,2,2,2 (4 values) are <= median and 2,2,2,3,9 (5 values) have values >= median. This means that 2/3 of the population are <= median, and 5/6 are >= median. Not 50/50. -- PRB
- There are six values (1,2,2,2,3,9) in the sorted list. The list can be split in half giving two sorted lists of three values (1,2,2) and (2,3,9). The median is the mean of the largest value in the smaller list and of the smallest number in the larger list. When there are an odd number of values in the original list, the median will be the centremost number in the sorted list. -- Derek Ross | Talk
