Standard Deviation Quotes

We all know that players will hit a few more home runs than usual in some years and a few less in others. But the mathematics of chance also predicts that some years they'll hit a lot more, and some years a lot less.

Statistics are about as interesting as first base coaches.

Normal is the average of deviance.

Maximum of an average is necessarily less volatile than the average maximum.

The average IQ in America is - and this can be proven mathematically - average.

And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality

If your broker or investment advisor is not familiar with the concept of standard deviation of returns, get a new one.

I found maths very easy, but I still enjoyed discovering things. You have to have the necessary information. For example, what's the difference between the mean and the median? Probability fascinated me. You have to think very carefully about things, which is the way my mind works anyway.

Averages are useful because many traits, behaviors, and outcomes are distributed in a bell-shaped curve, with most results clustered around the middle and a much smaller group of outliers at the high and low ends.

Remember, half the people you know are below average.

[On the Gaussian curve, remarked to Poincaré:] Experimentalists think that it is a mathematical theorem while the mathematicians believe it to be an experimental fact.

I'm interested in the left side of the Bell Curve.

Numerical quantities focus on expected values, graphical summaries on unexpected values.

The interpretation of medicine today is 'do your clinical values fall within a normal range?' Everything in the globe right now is in the law of averages, which mean absolutely nothing to individuals.

The world is a bell curve. Classroom test scores, employee performance in a company or how many people really, really like you. No matter the population you're studying, they always fit neatly across the standard deviations of the famous bell curve.

I've always been baffled by how much we over-rate the statistically insignificant differences that separate competitors at the top end of the distribution.

Politicians should not get involved in the detail of clinical criteria and shouldn't be arguing with professors and consultants over whether there is one standard deviation or two standard deviations.

I go into every meeting, into every room and for every speech understanding the standard deviation, the Bell Curve. I know there are about 10-15 percent of people in the room, who say, "I've been trying to say this for years. Finally. I agree. Yes, yes, yes." I know there are about 15 percent of the people in the room who think I'm an idiot, who think I don't know what I'm talking about, who think I'm naive or I have oversimplified everything. The majority who are open to the ideal.