this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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[โ€“] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 55 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The average person does not have 10 fingers. Maybe the median person, but not the average.

[โ€“] howrar@lemmy.ca 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Um akchully...

Median is a type of average

[โ€“] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 13 hours ago

NERDDDDD!

Ok, I had assumed average was the same as mean, but see that it's ambiguous. Saying "the mean person does not have 10 fingers" just sounds wrong though.

[โ€“] lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Most frequent occurence is the mode. Most ppl have 10. The median would be less than ten, while the mean average is skewed down, I would think, by some people losing fingers as the grow. Having extra fingers is pretty rare. So the mean might be 9.95 fingers, just to toss a number out.

[โ€“] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I assume the median and mode are the same value, 10 fingers, but have no data to back that up. I guess saying mode would have been a safer statement to make, but think that even if 49% of people have 0-9 fingers, the median number of fingers would still be 10.

[โ€“] lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The median of a data set is the measure of center that is the middle value when the original data values are arranged in order of increasing (or decreasing) magnitude.

So ppl generally have, say, between 2 and 11 fingers. If those were your only 2 data points, the mean would equal the median, and there is no mode.

[โ€“] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

I was also assuming a sample size of more than two for it to be statically significant.

[โ€“] davidgro@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For 10 to not be the median it would also have to not be the case for the majority of people (just the plurality at best), and while I don't have proof handy I'm pretty sure a vast majority have exactly 10, making that the precise median and the mode. Only the mean would be a different number of digits. (Both definitions)

[โ€“] lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The median of a data set is the measure of center that is the middle value when the original data values are arranged in order of increasing (or decreasing) magnitude.

So ppl generally have, say, between 2 and 11 fingers. If those were your only 2 data points, the mean would equal the median, and there is no mode.

[โ€“] davidgro@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Yes, but we don't have only those two points.

It's well known that most people have one specific value, so much so that our entire number system is based on it (literally the base, it's ten)

[โ€“] tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Mode assumes categorical data and is unbounded by range, whereas median makes the most sense for decimal numbers, albeit with rounding in this case

"People have round(median(data)) fingers"

edit: though, if we're counting just fingers and not counting half-fingers, then maybe this really is categorical data (ยฏ\(ใƒ„)/ยฏ?)

[โ€“] lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 day ago

The median of a data set is the measure of center that is the middle value when the original data values are arranged in order of increasing (or decreasing) magnitude.

So ppl generally have, say, between 2 and 11 fingers. If those were your only 2 data points, the mean would equal the median, and there is no mode.