Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:17:36 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> >>>> But look on the bright side; your score of 121 is still quite a bit
> >>>> higher than the mean of 100.
> >>> Unfortunately, the "average" person is really, really stupid...
> >> 
> >> By definition, you know that's not true.  "Average" is *average*, not
> >> *below average*.
> > 
> > How do you work that out?

> Mathematically.

  If the curve of people's intelligence is not linear, it can mean that
the majority of people are actually below average than above it (or the
other way around, of course, depending on the sign of the derivative of
the curve).

  As a simple example, if we have 4 people with IQs 90, 90, 90 and 130,
the average will be 100, but the majority of these people is below average.
In other words, three quarters of the people are "stupid" and one quarter
is "smart".

  If you enter this group and score 100, it means that you will be smarter
than the majority (three people are "stupider" than you, while only one
is "smarter"), yet the average is still 100.

  Thus scoring 100 does not automatically mean that you fall exactly in
the middle, with half the population being "stupider" and the other half
"smarter" than you. There may still be more of one than the other.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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