Call it the law of averages

Once I was in a meeting with a guy who asked why everyone couldn't be above average. Because that's not how averages work, Paul. I'm no mathematician but the average, as in its most usual definition, the mean, is surely often pointless? A ten and a ninety gives you an average of fifty. What does that mean? Of what use is that in many situations or discussions? It's not even that half are under and half are over. Get a wild enough outlier and every other number could be on the same side of the average. Let's be clear about what we are saying. It can sound great until we really think about it. I'd hazard that most people don't really understand probability and statistics and all that, as maths or psychology. I'm very much including myself in that. They built an average engine to tell us what the (English-speaking) internet, on average, thinks about something. Might I want to know what that is? Maybe. If what I wanted to know was what the internet, on average, thinks about something.…