Even Excel has a function called “average”, whereas R uses the “mean” function for the same thing. Interestingly, R doesn’t have a function called “average”, because that term is far too ambiguous to statisticians. I think that summarizes pretty well who these tools were made for.
US public schools taught me that mean=average and the others were themselves, not that average describes any process to find a “normal” value. Just throwing that out there so people know why the conversation above happens so frequently.
Yes, when most people say average, they mean mean. Few people I’ve met know the other concepts even exist.
Even Excel has a function called “average”, whereas R uses the “mean” function for the same thing. Interestingly, R doesn’t have a function called “average”, because that term is far too ambiguous to statisticians. I think that summarizes pretty well who these tools were made for.
US public schools taught me that mean=average and the others were themselves, not that average describes any process to find a “normal” value. Just throwing that out there so people know why the conversation above happens so frequently.