The basic tool of statistics is the bell curve. It describes a group of data. It depicts the mean, the mode and the median. Is this starting to be boring? Be patient with me. Knowing this information can enable us to make good decisions. Let’s use smoking as an example. If we look at a large group of smokers and a comparative group of non-smokers, the mean of each group can reveal to us a host of useful information which should enable us to make good choices. Smokers on average die several years before non-smokers. Smokers on average fall ill to a number of diseases non-smokers do not.
But someone will say, “I know someone in their nineties who has smoked two packs a day for 75 years.” That person is an outlier, someone outstanding from the group. They are the exception to the average. They are not the rule. The same is true with seat belts. We can all tell the tale of the person who was saved because they were thrown from the car. That person is also an outlier. The average person who is thrown is killed. The average person who is encased in their seat with the airbag does much better. It is like buying a lottery ticket. The average person loses. It is the outlier who wins. Most of us want to be an outlier. However it is important to know there are outliers on the negative side of the bell curve. Those are the ones struck by lightening.
Now that I have said all this I must mention Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the world.”
The mode, mean and median of the antediluvian world didn’t get in the ark!
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 17, 2009
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