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This is stats 101. Mean and median are measured of central tendency, and the median is generally better for skewed distributions. The 5 number summary (or your
by dwater 4y ago
This is stats 101. Mean and median are measured of central tendency, and the median is generally better for skewed distributions. The 5 number summary (or your 5 percentiles) gives slightly more information, but ultimately you are summarizing a complex distribution with a few simple stats. There are upsides (it’s fast) and downsides (it’s incomplete) to doing so. The real problem is how few people understand stats 101, which makes them easy to mislead.
- sitkack 4y agoMaybe we should teach stats 101 starting from kindergarten?
- quickthrower2 4y agoAnd have the news outlets talk intelligently about what the numbers mean. The BBC website does something nice where they often have an "Analysis" section under the news. A sentence or two about how to interpret the number would be useful. If they think we need analysis to understand what is happening in Ukraine, I think we probably need it for interpreting economics numbers. "We" being ... most people. And it wont always bet stats 101.
- hammock 4y agoMean and median are both typically taught around and better suited for use with normal distributions. Income distribution is not that complex, but it’s also not normal - it’s a power law (zipfs law). A combination of Total GDP (or income) and something like the Gini coefficient is more useful. And commonly used, as well