(August 29, 2014 at 9:26 am)Drich Wrote:Wouldn't those be the "one or more variables" that the word "average" implies? I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make.(August 28, 2014 at 3:38 pm)Tonus Wrote: He said "the average gravitational acceleration rate on Earth."but again that average is only valid at sea level. therefore not a true average. there is a 0.9% variance in that average therefore the true average 9.8 m/s². Plus 0.45%
You responded to him that 'other variables can change the formula' (I assume that you mean that other variables can change the result). My point is that the word "average" takes this into account; by definition, it recognizes that the results fall into a range that is dependent on one or more variables.
If I say that the average American is 30 years old, it doesn't mean that every American is 30 years old. It doesn't even mean that the average New Yorker is 30 years old. It doesn't mean that the average American who lives at sea level is 30 years old with a +/- coefficient of 0.45. It just means that the average American is 30 years old.
Why is the Earth only "the Earth" at sea level?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
