The End of Average
Why don't Meyers-Briggs personality tests really work? Why are HR tests for new employees often meaningless? Why doesn't BMI - body mass index - correlate to actual health or physical fitness? Individuals behave, learn, and develop in different ways, but these unique patterns of human behavior get lost in massive systems that play to average performance and average abilities, instead of individual performance and abilities. These systems made sense almost two centuries ago at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, but in today's globalized digital world they are outdated and inadequate. Yet, every single one of us is affected by these archaic systems. They are far more prevalent that you can imagine, and far more insidious: standardized tests, academic grading systems, job applicant profiling, job performance reviews, job training, even medical treatments. These systems ignore our differences and ultimately fail at measuring and maximizing our potential. As the first popular book on the science of the individual, The End of Average draws upon the very latest findings in the fields of psychology and sociology to show how, when we focus on individual findings rather than group averages, we are empowered to rethink the world and our place in it.
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9recommend
15mentions
14people
2016–2025years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
There's a great book by Todd Rose titled The End of Average; great read.> Something I’ve come to realize is that there’s a sort of irony in thinking people are stupid. It typically means you value a specific form of intelligence, and are too biased to recognize other forms when they occur in other people.Premise is exactly that for centuries, we've measured "intelligence" in such a narrow scope focused on the foundations of industry (reading, writing, arithmetic) often at the expense of other forms of intelligence like spatial (e.g. sculptors, artists), emotional, and even dextile (I think I just made up a word?).
I have more recently been thinking about what intelligence means in this era when AI is advancing so quickly in processing information in volumes far surpassing humans ever could. I think that in the future, we'll see a realignment on intelligence.
- Somewhat related book on how the concept of average can be misleading and/or detrimental, The End of Average
https://search.worldcat.org/title/The-end-of-average-:-how-w...
- There is a great book explaning the philosophy, story and problem of using averages in many fields - "The End of Average" by Todd Rose. [1]
I originally found it from the fascinating article on how using averages in the design of military plane cockpit resulted in many pilot deaths. That's the best introduction I've seen about uselessness of averages with multiple dimensions (with more than 3 dimensions it goes bananas). The article is actually is an excerpt from the book, so you can get the sense of the book level from it. [2]
[1] http://www.toddrose.com/endofaverage
[2] https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
- Thank you for sharing. This is the first chapter from Todd Rose's excellent book The End of Average. In the book, he also touches on the fascinating topic of context. For example there is no such thing as a person's average level of aggression - IF I am around my parents I tend to get aggressive, but IF I am around friends and strangers I am calm.
https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-end-of-average-97801419...
- FWIW the face of the statue of the "the typical woman 'Norma'" at https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
resembles Dana Scully of The X-Files.
I also enjoyed Todd Rose's book, which examines the history of (mis-)interpretations and (mis-)uses of the "average":
The End of Average
https://www.amazon.com/End-Average-Unlocking-Potential-Embra...
- Reminds me of The End of Average, [1] a book about human variation. It talks about how the Air Force tried to design a cockpit by averaging various measurements, only to find that their pilots weren't actually average.
Your point is especially apt here, where there is a possibility that the technology could be helpful for a subpopulation, and act somewhat like an assistive technology. It is very tricky to assess the utility of assistive technologies (I work in this field and have asked many experts how they do it) because the average impact isn't the most important thing. It doesn't matter if high-contrast mode is bad for 90% of people, if for the 10% who would actually use it, it's helpful.
One way that the study could have been optimized is if participants had been asked (after taking the test, to avoid priming) if they have any specific reading challenges. That would have helped identify whether there appear to be any subgroups that disproportionately benefit from the approach.
1: https://www.amazon.com/End-Average-Succeed-Values-Sameness/d...
