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The Times & The Sunday Times
The Times & The Sunday Times
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Beyond the pail

The Times
The Times

Sir, In criticising an article on average temperature, F. W. Nunneley repeats the psychology-lecturer joke about the statistician with one foot in a bucket of boiling water, another in a bucket of freezing water (letter, Sept 6).

This displays an ignorance of statistics. Every one of the many averages taken is, by definition, a “measure of central tendency”. His two buckets have no average.

ROBIN GIBSON

Belfast