> One of the things that hastened Larry Summers departure from Harvard is the general public's sudden inability to comprehend the difference between average and

> One of the things that hastened Larry Summers departure from Harvard is the general public's sudden inability to comprehend the difference between average and standard deviation ... Yes, but I would have said chronic and acute inability. What Summers offered in that unfortunate address was a perfectly reasonable explanation (concisely, same mean value but differing standard deviations), one that has a certain amount of circumstantial evidence and that in no way disparages women's intelligence or abilities, but all that followed from it resulted from innumeracy, not common sense.