You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Lumifer comments on Open thread, 21-27 April 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Metus 21 April 2014 10:54AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (346)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lumifer 21 April 2014 05:37:18PM 4 points [-]

There is nothing wrong with averages.

That depends. Mostly they are used as single-point summaries of distributions and in this role they can be fine but can also be misleading or downright ridiculous. The problem is that unless you have some idea of the distribution shape, you don't know whether the mean you're looking at is fine or ridiculous. And, of course, the mean is expressly NOT a robust measure.