I always kinda hate this quote because that's not really how averages work.

Think of how stupid the median person is, then realise half of them are stupider than that - Not George Carlin

I mean, it is intended to be how averages work for sufficiently large sample sizes. That’s the intent of a bell curve. For 800 people, maybe not, but for 8 billion? Probably extremely close.

Averages don’t always* work like that. In a lot of real world cases, that statement is accurate enough. When we are doing average wealth then yea, the numbers will be skewed a lot, but something like height would likely have similar mean and median.

Half the population: Who’s Median?

Average can be Median, Mean, Mode or even other measures.

Average ≠ mean necessarily

That bitch from biology class?

I guess my point is really just that it’s a curve and not a triangle.

It is if the distribution is symmetric and there are enough samples.

The joke works because intelligence tests follow a normal bell curve. Therefore, approximately half of the population would actually fall below average.

But it does in this context no? We are talking arithmetic here

yeah i dont like it either. i always thought that most people were supposed to be of average intelligence. so half of people are average, with the remaining half being split between the dumb dumbs and the geniuses