I always think of probability distributions in this context. Taking something like the bell curve for instance. Being bang-on precisely average is actually very unlikely. Some degree of “divergence” or “variation” from the mean is in fact the far more likely state. Even taking the typical +/- 1 standard deviation, which comprises ~68% … that leaves ~32% that do not fall into the middle or normal range.
That’s a huge amount of people that may all be very different from each other, even more different from each other than they are from “the average”, but are all very different from “normal”. IMO, it’s not appreciated enough how much variation is baked into anything statistical.
I always think of probability distributions in this context. Taking something like the bell curve for instance. Being bang-on precisely average is actually very unlikely. Some degree of “divergence” or “variation” from the mean is in fact the far more likely state. Even taking the typical +/- 1 standard deviation, which comprises
~68%… that leaves~32%that do not fall into the middle or normal range.That’s a huge amount of people that may all be very different from each other, even more different from each other than they are from “the average”, but are all very different from “normal”. IMO, it’s not appreciated enough how much variation is baked into anything statistical.