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I wonder if he just asked the students how much the bag weighed without giving a scale if you'd get a better answer. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/20

I wonder if he just asked the students how much the bag weighed without giving a scale if you'd get a better answer. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/31/the-real-wisdom-of-the-crowds/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/31/the-real-... This post is more "ask a bad question, get a bad answer".

npsimons 13y ago
This post is also from a teacher of statistics. Sure, you can weigh the whole bag to get the total (or average) weight; how do you propose to measure an aspect of an entire population, say one as large as a country? Sampling has its uses, when done properly. Besides, as others have pointed out, most people are notoriously bad at estimating weight.