Religious Moderates Are Those Who Reject God’s Clearly Stated Commands Using Their Own [Human] Morality as Justification

If you’re reading this you’re probably a bit geeky (like me), and you’ve no
doubt been in at least 42 conversations about average vs. mean, etc, etc. So
here’s a good summary of the basics for next time.

First Things First: “Average” is a General Term

If you’ve ever been lobbed the question of “what’s the difference between
the average and the mean?”, you (and perhaps the questioner too) might have
fallen into a trap. A mean is a type of average, not an
alternative to one.

Average is a general class. It just means “let’s try and generalize the data
given a set of data points”, and the (basic) mechanics for actually doing so
are described with three other terms: *mean*, *median*, and *mode*.

Hey, wait–that sounds like an average, right? That’s because it is. That’s
the whole point–they’re the same. A mean is a type of average, so when
people are asked to give an average (a general idea of the data) they often
give the mean. And what about median and mode?

Simple enough. And what about mode?

Summary

1. Means, medians, and modes are all types of averages.

2. A mean is the one where you add them all up and divide by the number of
   values.

3. The median is the value that separates the top half and bottom half.

4. The mode is the value that is found most frequently in the set.

Notes

1. For more reading, do visit the
   [averages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average “Average – Wikipedia,
   the free encyclopedia”) page at Wikipedia.