The Average Height Of Members Of The High School Basketball Team Is Six Feet, Three Inches. Jerry Is On The High School Basketball Team, So Jerry Must Be Taller Than Six Feet?The Argument Above Is Flawed Because It Confuses?

The argument is flawed because it confuses the average height of high school basketball players with the actual height of each individual player.

• The Average Height

An average consists of all numbers within a group being added together, then being divided by the amount of numbers. In other words, the height of all players added together is divided by 12. It is known that the average height of players is 6'3". This gives a total height 75'. Each player could be a different height, as long as all heights add up to 75'.

• Mid-range

The mid-range of a group of numbers is the maximum and the minimum value added together and divided by two. To make life easier for this example, we will assume that the mid-range here is equal to the average height of 6'3". The sum of the maximum and minimum height is therefore 12'6".

• Jerry's Height Range

Assuming further that the tallest one of the players is no taller than 6'8", then the shortest player can be no shorter than 5'10". Jerry could therefore be any height between 5'10" and 6'8", and the heights of the remaining players must be somewhere between these two heights.

There is no doubt that there was probably a much easier way of explaining this. There is quite an exhaustive article on averages on Wikipedia, and anyone with the patience may want to use some of the methods shown there to work out the heights all the other players might be.

This would, however, take up too much space and time to do here and now. We hope that this explanation was reasonably enlightening, without being too mind numbingly boring to anyone. Still, we know that the question has been answered and that was the whole point of the action, after all.

An average for the individuals that make up that average