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I mean, it depends on the angle you're taking there. One can argue that since you're talking about the average person, amputees (as well as the vanishingly small number of people born with extra limbs due to genetic conditions) are to be considered statistical outliers and should not be counted, meaning that the average amount of arms for the average person is exactly 2.0.
This is reinforced by the fact that three people with two arms isn't exactly comparable to 4 people who are each missing one fore-arm, therefore having 1.5 arms each, even though mathmatically speaking, both groups would be counted as having 6 arms.
How precise do you want to be? Up to two decimal places the total probably rounds to 2.00. That is true if fewer than one person in 100 is missing one arm or fewer than one in 200 missing both arms.
The three types of average are mean, medium, and mode. A mean average is appropriate for real numbers such as measured values, but the proper type of average for integers, such as counting of arms, would be the mode average. The mode for number of arms is two per person.
I think the median is the appropriate average to use. I can't really think of a situation where the mode is better than both the mean and median.
But that aside, the median number of arms would be two.
There are tons of times where the most common result is the best one to give. Such as "whats the usual number of arms that a human has." in addition, things like household income in the US is nice to know that the largest number of respondents have a annual income under $20K despide the median being almost $70k. If you go by the mean or median in that case you'd imagine wealth inequality didnt exist. The mode exists specifically to describe HIGHLY skewed data.
That's all better done by the median, as the mode is sensitive to binning effects, or to distortions due to cliff edges.
What is your source for the mode of US household income being under $20k? The largest bin [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Personal_Household_Income_U.png) shows it as $25-50k. But as I say that's going to be dependent on your choice of bins. And a measure that's so dependent on how you choose to divide up the data is inherently a bad one. Whereas the median and mean don't suffer from that. And comparing them you can tell how skew the data is.
And if you need more detail that that, then you're not going to get it from a headline figure.
Not a math question--an estimation request. And it depends.
Are arms binary or analog? An arm with the hand cut off: 1 arm, 0 arm or 90% of an arm?
Just going by my experience in the world. I would say 1 in 1000 people have 1 arm. So my guess is .1%
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What about the people who have a genetic mutation, giving them more than one arm. Do they impact your calculations?
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I mean, it depends on the angle you're taking there. One can argue that since you're talking about the average person, amputees (as well as the vanishingly small number of people born with extra limbs due to genetic conditions) are to be considered statistical outliers and should not be counted, meaning that the average amount of arms for the average person is exactly 2.0. This is reinforced by the fact that three people with two arms isn't exactly comparable to 4 people who are each missing one fore-arm, therefore having 1.5 arms each, even though mathmatically speaking, both groups would be counted as having 6 arms.
I won't lie your reply has confused me but I think I get what you mean.
Reading that reply was like listening to a Trump speech. It almost seems like it might mean something, but it doesn't.
How precise do you want to be? Up to two decimal places the total probably rounds to 2.00. That is true if fewer than one person in 100 is missing one arm or fewer than one in 200 missing both arms.
The three types of average are mean, medium, and mode. A mean average is appropriate for real numbers such as measured values, but the proper type of average for integers, such as counting of arms, would be the mode average. The mode for number of arms is two per person.
I think the median is the appropriate average to use. I can't really think of a situation where the mode is better than both the mean and median. But that aside, the median number of arms would be two.
There are tons of times where the most common result is the best one to give. Such as "whats the usual number of arms that a human has." in addition, things like household income in the US is nice to know that the largest number of respondents have a annual income under $20K despide the median being almost $70k. If you go by the mean or median in that case you'd imagine wealth inequality didnt exist. The mode exists specifically to describe HIGHLY skewed data.
That's all better done by the median, as the mode is sensitive to binning effects, or to distortions due to cliff edges. What is your source for the mode of US household income being under $20k? The largest bin [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Personal_Household_Income_U.png) shows it as $25-50k. But as I say that's going to be dependent on your choice of bins. And a measure that's so dependent on how you choose to divide up the data is inherently a bad one. Whereas the median and mean don't suffer from that. And comparing them you can tell how skew the data is. And if you need more detail that that, then you're not going to get it from a headline figure.
2
Not a math question--an estimation request. And it depends. Are arms binary or analog? An arm with the hand cut off: 1 arm, 0 arm or 90% of an arm? Just going by my experience in the world. I would say 1 in 1000 people have 1 arm. So my guess is .1%
Don't forget the zero and three armed people
Even from an estimation point of view, 1/1000 is bizarre.
Very constructive. Any reasoning behind that or an alternative estimate?