“If this is not what springs immediately to mind as soon as the words “on average” are appended to a description of mean differences, then the words “on average” have not rectified the damage done by the use of means to describe populations of varied individuals.”

— Steve Stewart-Williams

Source: The Ape that Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2013), p. 268

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Steve Stewart-Williams 63

1971

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Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Here is what the data that the means are drawn from actually tell us:
Men and women can be found at virtually every level of interest in casual sex. At the right-hand tail of the distribution, only a small number of people are strongly interested in casual sex; however, of these people, more are men than women. At the left-hand tail, only a small number of people are strongly <I>dis</I>interested in casual sex; however, of these people, more are women than men. Most people — men <I>and</I> women — fall somewhere in between. If you were to choose one man and one woman at random, it would be somewhat more likely that the man would have higher SO. However, you wouldn't want to bet your life savings on it. Around a third of the time — i.e., closer to 50% than to 0% — the woman would have higher SO.
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