Lyric copyright ©2011, 2024 by Lawrence Mark Lesser.
May sing to the tune of "Mean" (Taylor Swift)
You.......know the average lies with lots of skew among your exes.
You.......could sum up and divide for a measure of center.
You.....know "all too well" to check the shape of the data before
You......choose to use the mean.
'Cause it can get pulled out by just one single point,
And you don't know what you don't know....
CHORUS:
Sometimes data have a real asymmetry
Or values that are really quite extreme.
In those cases, better use the median
If the middle is what you need - that's not gonna be the mean!
That won't be the mean with outliers, just forget it,
Do you see just what I mean & mean & mean & mean? (repeat chorus)