
How the Idea of a ‘Normal’ Person Got Invented - BWStearns
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/the-invention-of-the-normal-person/463365/?single_page=true
======
JorgeGT
Aristotle (384-322 BC) already advises us to be cautious when applying pure
mathematical averages to human daily life:

 _By the mean of a thing I denote a point equally distant from either extreme,
which is one and the same for everybody; by the mean relative to us, that
amount which is neither too much nor too little, and this is not one and the
same for everybody. For example, let 10 be many and 2 few; then one takes the
mean with respect to the thing if one takes 6; since 10-6 = 6-2, and this is
the mean according to arithmetical proportion [progression]. But we cannot
arrive by this method at the mean relative to us. Suppose that 10 lb. of food
is a large ration for anybody and 2 lb. a small one: it does not follow that a
trainer will prescribe 6 lb., for perhaps even this will be a large portion,
or a small one, for the particular athlete who is to receive it; it is a small
portion for Milo, but a large one for a man just beginning to go in for
athletics._

Aristotle, _Nichomachean Ethics_ , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

~~~
a_imho
Did Aristotle really use the unit lb? And was it the same as we today
recognize it?

~~~
minikites
"The libra (Latin for 'scales / balance') is an ancient Roman unit of mass
that was equivalent to approximately 328.9 grams. It was divided into 12
unciae (singular: uncia), or ounces. The libra is the origin of the
abbreviation for pound, 'lb'."

~~~
gjm11
The actual unit Aristotle used was the "mna". A mna was 100x as heavy as a
drachma. According to Wikipedia (which is always right except when it's wrong)
the most commonly used standard in ancient Greece made a drachma weigh about
4.3g, in which case a mna would be about 430g, compared with 454g for a pound
weight. So "pound" or "lb" is a pretty good translation for "mna".

(The "mna" has rough equivalents in other ancient Near Eastern cultures.
There's at least one "mina" in the New Testament, and in the famous "writing
on the wall" at Belshazzar's feast -- MENE MENE TEKEL PHARSIN -- "mene" is
basically the same word as "mna".)

------
Artoemius
> For example, Quetelet showed that the average rate of suicide was relatively
> stable from year to year. While this would hardly be startling news these
> days, in the 1830s suicide was seen as a highly irrational private decision
> that could not possibly conform to any deeper pattern. Instead, Quetelet
> showed that suicides occurred with reliable and consistent regularity. And
> not only that: He claimed that the stability of the occurrences indicated
> that everyone possesses an average propensity toward suicide.

I must admit this is really interesting. If all people are individuals, it's
not obvious that the suicide rates should be stable.

~~~
Aeolun
I can't really imagine it being not obvious, though that's probably a factor
of current education.

~~~
tremguy
Why was this downvoted? The parent comment clearly shows a lack of familiarity
with statistics.

~~~
BWStearns
I didn't downvote it but I know why it's downvoted.

The downvotee could clearly imagine this being unintuitive if he were inclined
to be so creative. The entire comment evals to "I inherently grasped
statistical thinking from birth, what's wrong with you that you didn't?"

To borrow from a Hacker School post a long time ago: it's feigning surprise[0]
at the ignorance of others. If you're on HN you probably work in an
environment where learning is a non-optional part of your every day. Getting
to the point where not knowing things isn't a blow to your self-esteem can be
a pretty big professional hurdle for people.

Unless the downvotee was born with an inherently sound understanding of
statistical thinking and also has some trouble empathizing with other humans
then his comment was just going out of his way to tell a fellow human that
their moment of learning and realization was remedial.

[0] [https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-
rules](https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules)

Edit: After explaining it and rereading the downvotee I decided to downvote as
well. The clincher was following up with the implication that the original
poster was not only remedial but poorly educated.

~~~
StavrosK
I'm going to completely break the etiquette of the link you provided and go
"Well, actually... it's 'borne'".

Other than that, great comment, and thank you for that link.

~~~
BWStearns
>> Unless the downvotee was born with an inherently sound understanding

This part? I meant "was born" as made the jump from being a fetus to being a
baby, not "borne" in the sense of being carried, although I guess that works
in a bit more poetic sense.

(Also thanks for the comment either way, always happy for feedback and
corrections)

~~~
StavrosK
Whoops, did you edit that? I could swear I read "the _downvote_ " rather than
"downvotee", but then it doesn't make sense in context anyway. Brain fart, I
guess, sorry.

------
rusabd
I think this article is less about "normal" and more about "average" person.
The history of normality and curing/fixing abnormality has been dissected by
Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison" and "The
Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception".

------
Retric
It's interesting that Quetelet Index aka BMI is arguably 'wrong' as it's
comparing volume of something with one dimension ^2 instead of one dimension
^3. There are reasons it's valuable in human health as square cube law scaling
has negative consequences. Still, it's interesting just how 'old' that
measurement is.

~~~
btilly
The BMI is more right than wrong. The strength of a physical object varies
with cross-area, so the strength of your heart varies as height squared. The
amount of work it has to do varies as mass, which does tend to scale as height
cubed.

The result is that height and heart disease are correlated. See
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25051127](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25051127)
for a random verification.

~~~
Retric
IMO it's a mixed bag. I agree it works for heart disease, obesity, etc. But,
it's also used for anorexia where it seems like a poor fit.

------
dcw303
> Quetelet’s invention of the Average Man marked the moment when the average
> became normal, the individual became error, and stereotypes were validated
> with the imprint of science

I wonder what would have happened had he used a statistical mode instead of
the mean. He was coming at the problem from the experience of correcting error
in astronomical measurement, but it seems like there were some mental
gymnastics required to equate individual measures of humans as errors.

~~~
rdancer
This was likely more a result of the European tradition of a Platonic ideal of
man, and the Christian doctrine that man ought to be virtuous. The two
intertwine, and you have a Platonic ideal of a man who is both naturally and
spiritually virtuous. Many scholars spent their careers showing that spiritual
impurity effects natural deformity and vice versa. Not only bodily defects
were understood to be errors, they were thought to be either a natural result
of the person's viciousness, a deserved supernatural punishment, or a Jobian
trial. Either way: ideal = good, deviant = not good.

So it makes sense that there is an ideal physical form of a man, which is
definite (quantifiable) and unchanging (i.e. no evolution). I have never heard
of Quetelet, but I doubt he did anything more than put a series of numbers to
this preëxisting notion.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Many scholars spent their careers showing that spiritual impurity effects
natural deformity and vice versa. Not only bodily defects were understood to
be errors, they were thought to be either a natural result of the person's
viciousness, a deserved supernatural punishment, or a Jobian trial. //

You implicitly suggest this comes from Christian doctrine (?) which is strange
as it's recorded in the New Testament
([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+9&version=...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+9&version=NIV;NASB;MSG))
that Jesus was asked who had sinned in order that a blind person had become
blind and he responded that no-one had, that it wasn't the result of sin.

Now, scholars who wanted to control the people's behaviour might find it
beneficial to promulgate a position that sin caused deformity but it seems
quite at odds with this NT account of the position of Jesus on the matter.
Moreover the greater message from Jesus is to bring succour to those who are
weaker, and that we are all sinners deserving of God's wrath.

I don't doubt that your suggestion matches the position of some Christians,
but that does not make it a Christian position - it seems more derived from
societal superstition than from Christian theology.

~~~
rdancer
Good starting point:
[http://disabilitiesswrk1006.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/physical-...](http://disabilitiesswrk1006.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/physical-
deformity-related-to-impurity.html)

------
arfar
This is a great read. I'm especially surprised about what it means to be an
"Average Person".

"Average" or an "Average Person" now (at least amongst my social circle) is
actually a bad thing, something that people will put effort into _not_ being.
Describing something as "average" (or just "av" in conversation) is a way to
describe something as disappointing.

So strange how the meaning has pretty much completely flipped on its head.

~~~
rdancer
These are two different effects of the same quality.

"Average" means undistinguished, interchangeable; depending on the
distribution and context it may mean, with examples:

* normal distribution (IQ): "worse than half of the others"

* distribution with a long positive tail (wealth): "way worse than the best"

* distribution with a compressed left tail (IQ in college-educated adults): "amongst of the worst"

* 20/80 cut-off (female mating strategy): "swipe left"

"Average" also means safe, solid, ideal, normal. This happens when avoiding
risk:

* probabilistic estimate of future risk (there is evidence that averaging multiple faces renders a face more beautiful than the rest): average mate => higher probability of average (viable) offspring

* 80/20 cut-off (male mating strategy): "gentlemen prefer blondes — but marry brunettes"

* [too tired to think of other meanings]

Often the same product is both average-good and average-bad, and this is why
we have Internet flame wars!

~~~
pluma
> 80/20 cut-off (male mating strategy)

Where do you get that number? All the statistics I've seen from dating sites
indicate that while women have an 80% cut off men have a 50% cut off (i.e.
truly average).

In other words, while women consider any men below the 80th percentile "below
average", men's opinions reflect the actual average (i.e. considering any
women below the 50th percentile "below average" and above it "above average")
rather than (as you seem to say) considering any woman above the 20th
percentile "above average".

~~~
rdancer
This applies to all sexually-reproducing species, not just humans. The male
_strategy_ is optimized for low cost, so males _prefer_ to mate with a fit
female, but will settle for "anything with a pulse". In humans, this is
evidenced by virtually all women having babies.

I don't know what the actual ratio is, and it will probably be different
depending on the fitness of the male and how near the bar's closing time. The
salient aspects are that the division is asymmetric, the strategy complements
the female strategy, and that there is a hard cutoff (some of the females are
so unfit they will never be considered).

~~~
pluma
Sure, but the interesting part is that we like to think such animalistic
traits are beneath us. We're not rational creatures, we're just ordinary
creatures that happen to be capable of _ratio_ sometimes.

A lot of the social discussions we are currently having in tech likes to
portray humans as entirely rational and intentional when in fact the problems
we're trying to solve are engrained in our biology, not part of our culture.
Doesn't mean we can't (or shouldn't) work around them but it means you need to
do more than just pin all the problems on the majority and assume that once
the power dynamics shift the problems will go away.

------
hammock
Statistics are descriptive, not prescriptive. People forget that often.

------
qzxvwt
For further reading that spans more broadly with the underlying idea here, I
recommend:
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/objectivity](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/objectivity)

I'm not done with it but so far it's been an epistemological history lesson
that has me thinking a lot about how the current era of Big Data / rising
ubiquity of mechanical objectivity (esp photography — from WWI photojournalism
to google earth) has been altering humanity on all fronts, from the sciences
to the arts to the justice system... particularly how seeking truth is
seemingly no longer a burden when everything is recorded by computers, yet at
the same time there is still the very real burden of communication
(presentation/interpretation) when said data is given an audience.

~~~
q-base
Thanks. That seems really interesting! Added to my amazon wishlist.

------
alexashka
Having read the article from start to finish - I can't help but wonder 'so
what?'

I mean, this is akin to finding out the diameter of the moon in isolation, are
we going to do something with it?

------
leopld
Interesting article! I'm a little skeptic to the final paragraph, though,
specifically the notion that this research prompted the birth of stereotypes.

Stereotypes might not have existed in their modern form previously, but
they're akin to the notion that people have an essence, assigned to them by
nature. Platon's ideas about comparing an individual's essence to a metal is a
good example (bronze people are good at this, iron people good at that). And I
definitely think we'd fool ourselves thinking that the individual held a
stronger position in society prior to the early 19th century...

~~~
adwf
I think they're really talking about scientific stereotypes.

It's this kind of thinking that starts to give rise to so-called scientific
explanations of why certain races are "inferior". The average man concept lets
you compare races and genders and all sorts in a way that can appear
scientific - in method at least - whilst ignoring the fact that there are so
many variables to account for in the human condition, that any result must be
taken with a lot of skepticism.

But people in general, particularly around the time, were astounded by the
leaps and bounds that science had been making. So anything "proven" in a
scientific enough manner, must be true. No skepticism to be found.

~~~
leopld
That's a really good answer, thanks!

------
alanwatts
As products and services became increasingly standardized, conformed, and
repeatable in the industrial age, so did the users. This dynamic is changing
in the electric age where products and services are becoming increasingly
customizable to the individual needs and desires of the specific user.

------
Qantourisc
I always say to people "Name me one normal person." (They usually can't.) And
if they do name one that could qualify: "It's not normal to be normal."

~~~
ajuc
Average person has half a penis.

It doesn't mean stats are useless. It means you have to know how to interprete
them.

~~~
douche
Depends on the time and region you select your sample from. In some provinces
of China at different times, the average person might have six tenths of a
penis.

------
abledon
"What about you reader are you normal?"[1]

Which they then go on to explain the hilarious abnormality of being normal.

[1][https://youtu.be/_Oc9tKkH7WE?t=7m6s](https://youtu.be/_Oc9tKkH7WE?t=7m6s)
(1 minute watching time)

------
ktRolster
Because before recently, the world was divided up into "royalty" and "people
who mostly didn't matter." Maybe add a caste for soldiers or for farmers or
for merchants, depending on how enlightened the society was.

~~~
clock_tower
The article's about statistical averages, and their implications for the
modern social sciences, not about historical classes and castes.

Indo-European society probably had three castes: medicine men (responsible for
law and justice, good relations with the gods, and magic; "wizard-priests"
would also work as a description of their role, but feels too flattering for
such an early, primitive society); warriors; and commoners. India split
commoners into two classes (artisans etc., and laborers); Europe and Persia
grouped skilled and unskilled commoners together. Europe and India both saw
intense competition between the two top estates -- roughly speaking, magi and
knights -- to determine who would rule society; in Persia, the magi more or
less won without a fight (and sacralized the knights), thanks to Zoroaster.

In short, it wasn't nearly as simple as royal versus non-royal, at least not
in the Indo-European world -- and the high-ranking estates had obligations as
well as privileges.

