"camjay" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 22, 11:26 am, "Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom
wrote:
"Joe Egginton" wrote :

I never trust anyone that says "the average" of anything. The average
is
a very crude measure. I rather be told the standard deviation it gives
a
much more clear measure.

To prove my point a little joke: Three hunters were in the forest,
they
saw a bear, one of the hunters said," I'll shoot him easy", the bear
moved
at the last minute, and the shot went two inches to the left. The
second
hunter said,"Bad luck, I'll show you how a proper hunter does it!", He
got
his aim, just has he shot he slipped on the wet ground the the shot
went
two inches to the right of the bear. The third hunter said," No point
in
me taking a shot, on average we've shot the bear!".

And of course there are over 6 billion people on this planet with
above-the-average number of legs.

below the average, surely...

The vast majority of people have two legs but because of the tiny
mumber of people with zero or one leg, the average number of legs will
be something like 1.999999.

I suspect you were thinking that the average number of legs is below
two, which is the way this little teaser is sometimes phrased
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl