On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 13:07:31 -0800, "Calif Bill"
wrote:


"John H." wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:46:31 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Jan 8, 9:54 am, John H. wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 06:13:17 -0800 (PST), wrote:

snipped

Loogy, you said it all right below:

An average is an average.

We all agree with that statement. The question revolves about the title
you
give your average. Apparently that's a point you're not grasping well.

If I take the average of the noon temperature in Seattle (50F)and the
3:00
PM temperature in Washington, DC (64F}, I can then say the average of
the
two temperatures at the same time was 57F. If I wanted to be bold, I
could
say that the average temperature across the continental US was 57F.

Hopefully, we can both see the stupidity of that 'boldness'.
--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."

It is what it is. An average. Given enough data sets it gets quite
accurate.

Again, the line above says it all. There have to be 'enough' data sets,
read at the same times, not influenced by man-made structures, etc, etc,
in
order to say that the 'average temperature of the earth' is doing
anything.

If you said, "The average temperature of these 1279 thermometers read at
1200 hrs, GMT was X," then you'd get no argument. You could make all the
claims you wanted about the 'average temperature of the 1279'!

--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."

Both wrong. You only need ONE data set. But it needs to be a huge data
set. And do you read all the data points at a single time. Or do your read
all the data points at Noon locally or some other local time point? OR do
you read all the data points at the same relative time. Divide the world in
24 time zones as now? Or into 360 time zones on each degree of the
circumference? As Tom the mathematician says there are lots of different
ways to average.


Did I say something different?
--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."