I was having a conversation with my best friend and they said that the average height is a subject thing bc in order for it to be objective they need to have study or gotten all the heights from every man in American. I’m not certain how data or stats work. But maybe it’s objective only by those who have been tested on average? Idk how to explain it to them or if I’m wrong help me understand a bit better.
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I think both of you are misunderstanding what objectivity is.
A measure of height is always objective, if you’re giving it as a numerical measure anyway.
That doesn’t mean it’s correct or accurate. Some people seem to have the impression that a claim is objective if it’s true and subjective if it’s not, but that’s not what those words mean.
Subjective means based on opinion or feelings. Judging whether someone is tall or short is subjective, because it comes down to personal opinion which heights are considered “tall”. Judging that someone is 6 foot 2 is not subjective. I measured you and that’s what your height is. No personal feelings enter the equation.
Calculating an average does not consider any personal opinions. It’s either correct or incorrect, but that’s a different thing.
Saying “I measured the average height of American men and found that it is 500 feet” is completely objective. It being obviously wrong doesn’t make it less objective.
Whether the average of the sample is representative of the whole population is somewhere in between. Partly subjective, partly objective.
You can’t sort everything in the world into purely objective or purely subjective. It’s a gradient not a binary.
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