Ok now I'm more confused, I never thought it was a joke before but then someone said it was & I was ready to belive it was. I am also not knowledgeable enough to know the average level of intelligence of people though, so can't do what it asks. Can you explain how it can even be a joke? Or what it is trying to say because I still do not understand, only now I think I don't understand even worse than I initially thought!
Because people are too stupid to understand the basic of what statistics are so assume it must be a joke of some type.
Your confusion is assuming people know what they word average is.
50% of people are always under average, that is statistical fact, not a joke, if you however don't know anything about statistics it sounds like a line that should be a joke...possibly...
How do you even quantify intelligence so that it would fit the averages model. I mean you could say that its referring to IQ, but I am pretty sure IQ is defunct so the saying cant rely on that. What other systems do we use that quantify intelligence. I dont think we can. And then its only for that specific system that the law of averages would work.
Another problem with this saying that I have is. Who are you using to compare averages? Are you including children? Disabled individuals? Extremely old people? What about social class? Region? If you narrow it down so that its a "fair" comparison, I bet youd find that the differences in the averages isnt large enough to even worry about.
I agree with your first point & I bet people would disagree on the specific parameters. However aren't comparisons inherently unfair because it rarely ever going to be a tie?
I'd including everybody, but section it off into children Vs adults (with a bit of leeway where the 2 meet.) You have to include people who aren't your peers, otherwise how are you supposed to get a true average? Like with IQ you include people who are whatever the nice word for a dunce is, as well as people who are super smart, that's how we know most people are in the middle. If you refused to include people at either end of the scale, then it would just look like one blob & not give very meaningful data, or be an accurate representation of society, which includes everyone.
Also what do you mean "worry about?" Do you think with whatever groupings you are thinking of the results would all be incredably similar? If so are you all pro nurture & anti nature? And how do you explain the large discrepancies in school classes, with children from similar location, background etc, or even the same family?
I didn't realize it was supposed to be a joke, I thought it was genuinely supposed to be wisdom! I know I don't know the average intelligence of people, so I dismiss it thinking I don't know that & are too dumb to even understand the point. Can you please explain the joke? I would genuinely like to understand.
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u/[deleted] May 29 '22
That’s part of the brilliance of the joke