Flat Earth

[JirinPanthosa]

Not having anything to do with the subject under discussion I think the mean and median of the IQ curve are very different just because of people with disabilities. It's a two-peaked curve.

In D&D terms, I think Flat Earth-ness is more an issue of Wisdom score than Intelligence score. A lot of flat earthers, I suspect, could solve difficult logic puzzles with ease. Then they'd send money to every Nigerian prince to come their way.

 

[Captain_Nick]

You're giving them far more credit than they deserve. I doubt they could spell 'logic puzzles'

 

[Oddish]

I still maintain that they know the truth, they're just doing it to get attention. The adult equivalent of the teenager who dyes their hair parrot green and gets their bellybutton pierced.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I still maintain that they know the truth, they're just doing it to get attention. The adult equivalent of the teenager who dyes their hair parrot green and gets their bellybutton pierced.

That's what I think sometimes. I mean if they really wanted to prove this why no expedition to the arctic to find and explore the edge?

 

[Captain_Nick]

Easy. The MSM New World Order is pushing the agenda that you can't know the TRUTH without "proof". PROOF IS JUST MORE MSM LIES

 

[Captain_Nick]

DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND WAKE UP SHEEPLE

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Each can be thrown off by outliers, though I think the mean is the less vulnerable of the two.

It's a data-specific question, but the consensus is pretty much the other way around, that in general the median is the less vulnerable of the two (mean vs median) to being thrown off by outliers.

Consider first of all that varying one extreme value necessarily alters the mean, but (assuming e.g. that there are at least three data values and that the value being altered remains the same type of extreme, upper or lower) it affects the median not at all. In such a scenario, increasing the maximum without limit increases the mean without limit, whereas the median remains completely fixed.

In the case of a cluster of values with a relative few number of outliers on either end, the median is necessarily always within the cluster somewhere, whereas the the mean can be made to be inside the cluster or on either side, depending on how extreme the outliers are. Adding one more outlier will always displace the median only within the cluster, whereas the mean's new value is sensitive to the precise value of the outlier.

Etc., however it gets more complicated the more clusters there are.

Beyond the data-specific issue of which is more vulnerable to outliers, there is the overriding contextual issue of what it is that is being studied and which calculations are necessary to that end. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for which value is more appropriate.

 

[Oddish]

The mean of 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 153 will likely not provide a complete picture.

The median of 0, 3, 4, 5, 5, 19, 50, 105, and 432... same difficulty.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The mean of 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 153 will likely not provide a complete picture.

The median of 0, 3, 4, 5, 5, 19, 50, 105, and 432... same difficulty.

Yeah, and? There's a vast difference between not being sensitive to the value of outliers and providing a complete picture.

 

[John Clark]

That's what I think sometimes. I mean if they really wanted to prove this why no expedition to the arctic to find and explore the edge?

I vaguely seem to recall one video put out a few years back that claimed that there were NASA funded death squads who would kill anyone who tried

 

[Oddish]

Because they have to explain it away. Clever. My hypothesis that they're not stupid people believing the ridiculous but smart people just trying to get attention... it looks better and better.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I vaguely seem to recall one video put out a few years back that claimed that there were NASA funded death squads who would kill anyone who tried

Even better news then.

Send them there to be shot and livestream it. Then when it doesn't happen make fun of them

 

[Avro Arrow]

NASA funded death squads

What is "phrases I never thought I would hear"?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I still maintain that they know the truth, they're just doing it to get attention. The adult equivalent of the teenager who dyes their hair parrot green and gets their bellybutton pierced.

Some, yes.
Especially some of those derps in Beyond the Curve documentary know they are full of shot.
They still make a career out of vomiting flat earth bullshit.
But there are the idiots who let themselves get parted from their money for believing in these “theories”.
Those flerfers are real.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I vaguely seem to recall one video put out a few years back that claimed that there were NASA funded death squads who would kill anyone who tried

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Because they have to explain it away. Clever. My hypothesis that they're not stupid people believing the ridiculous but smart people just trying to get attention... it looks better and better.

I think in some cases that's true. But it's certainly not universal. It's more complicated than that. It's an emotional complex that combines total lack of trust in authority with intellectual narcissism, reinforced by self validation filtering Internet culture. Someone makes an emotional appeal to their anger and lack of trust, a seed of wrongness is planted in their brain, then the Internet pumps it with just the right kind of manure to fertilize the seed.

You don't need to have a low IQ for that to work. Just the right combination of emotions to start a pyscho-stupidity chain reaction.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Average is, by definition, the 50% mark, either via mean or median.

Median, perhaps (if there are an odd number of people). Mean, no, unless you're sure the data follows a Gaussian distribution or is otherwise perfectly symmetrically distributed, and that in itself is a result, not a given.

If you had a population of four people with FancyQs of 80, 81, 82, 83, and 120, the mean is 89.2, the median 82.
There are four people, or 80% of the population, below the mean, and one person, or 20% of the population, above it. 50% are equal or above the median of 82, and 50% are equal or below it.

 

[Unicron]

In a variant form of stupidity, there's now a Helen Keller denial conspiracy theory going around social media.

 

[Pingfah]

I still maintain that they know the truth, they're just doing it to get attention. The adult equivalent of the teenager who dyes their hair parrot green and gets their bellybutton pierced.

Agreed. I also think a lot of people just like the challenge of coming up with absurd explanations to prove something that is obviously not true. And to annoy other people by doing that.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

In a variant form of stupidity, there's now a Helen Keller denial conspiracy theory going around social media.

And of course that originated on TikTok and social media, that figures.