Well, I read his article as "let's abandon standard deviation and use average mean deviation instead". I think that's what he claims. It's not: "some people are

Well, I read his article as "let's abandon standard deviation and use average mean deviation instead". I think that's what he claims. It's not: "some people are sometimes confused by the concept and in some places mean deviation would serve better, for example here and here". It has way more aggressive tone and way wider assertions about people misusing standard deviation. Remarks about "real life" doesn't help either, especially if you don't provide even one example where standard deviation is commonly used but mean absolute deviation would serve better. >> Which -- as someone in the financial industry -- I can absolutely confirm. This is what he is doing: he takes common sentiment often and makes into war. "Abandon standard deviation", "the confusion started", "PhD's are confused" It's easy to like him and nod in agreement while omitting that he took it way too far, proposed things way too radical and again: didn't give one single example of stuff not working because of it.