how does the gap between percentages work?

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I don’t even know if the question is well written but this is my doubt: sometimes (in the area of medicine in my case) you can read numbers like “between 30 and 80 percent of the patients have a relapse”.
Isn’t a percentage an average per se?
If I do an experiment with 100 people, shouldn’t I have an exact percentage of people who react in certain way? How can’t I know if they are 30 or 80?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Think about it this way: if you flip 100 coins, how many heads will you get?

On average, 50. But over time, you’ll probably get a range of answers, some of which might be in the 30-40 range, and some in the 60-70 range (I would be surprised if you get more than 70 or less than 30, unless you’re flipping a LOT).

Studies work the same way.

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