The funniest part of the story is the article got the formula for average wrong. The article listed all this "add them all up and divide by how many" but thats

The funniest part of the story is the article got the formula for average wrong. The article listed all this "add them all up and divide by how many" but thats totally wrong. The real way averages are calculated is you write a script for an actor wearing a lab coat to sell more toothpaste, and some liberal arts grad picks a number that rolls off the tongue and sounds good. Sometimes politicians use "average" as a verbal filler. like "like" or "um", it doesn't mean anything numerical it just sounds good and fills space. So the kids that wrote 18 or 120 are the only kids who got it right. You put your nose in the air and sniff what someone wants to hear about a conclusion they've already drawn, and if higher or lower is better, well, thats what the answer is. The answer to "whats the average of one 100 and nine 20s" is NOT, repeat, NOT 28. Thats never going to sell toothpaste in TV commercials, sounds terrible. If you have a system of commerce built entirely on lies and deceit and asymmetric unfair marketplaces, some weird rant about mathematical truth is like asking how many angels dance on the head of a pin.