I was surprised at this passage, too. It begins by quoting the Oxford dictionary, which always raises alarm bells that the author's ideas on the topic are incho

I was surprised at this passage, too. It begins by quoting the Oxford dictionary, which always raises alarm bells that the author's ideas on the topic are inchoate, but the wording of the 'racing' example is an unforgivable blunder. The 'mean' referred to in 'regression to the mean' is the mean of the individual, not of the pack.