Mean versus Median for those of you interested in statistics

I feel even more confidant now that I read that Wikipedia document.

Para,
One last post I’ll make in this thread, since you seem to be so enamored of these studies…

(1) I never said that age & sampling were everything in all the studies, but your inclusion of the large Italian sampling still falls into what I said about a specific ethnic group (I don’t think there’s any question about ehtnic/racial differences).

(2) If one thing stands out about all of these studies its basically the worthlessness of these studies - because they vary so damn much. In the Italian study it’s 4.9, in the condom study it’s 5.9 - a full 20% deviation.

Imagine if the Institute of Health reported that the Average American Male was between 5 foot and 6 foot tall. That would be utterly ridiculous. But that’s basically what the “scientific studies” tell us about penis size….in other words, their studies are no better than our opinions. (I don’t remember anybody here suggesting that the average was under 5 inches. And with exception of Dr. Luvdadus - who probably saw a lot of penii in his day - nobody suggested the average was above 6” or so [he suggested 6.5 bp]).

So what most guys do here is to pick the study showing the lowest average - which is easy to do since none of them agree with each other.

You cavalierly dismiss anecdotal stories in favor of wildly-divergent “studies” which never yield the same results. If all of your talk about empirical evidence had any merit whatsoever upon this subject, we’d keep getting a very narrow range in all of these studies - such as we get with average heights, life expectancies, etc.; yet, no two of them yield the same results.

And, again, Kinsey’s sampling was supposedly even more than the Italian study - yet showed a significantly higher average.

You’re free to equivocate all you want about the embarrasing disparities between the various surveys, but the conclusions are the same: they don't really know. And they’re certainly no better than the common opinions stated here.

I don’t need a “study” to tell me that the average penis is between 5 to 6” anymore than I need a university to tell me the average American man is between 5 to 6 feet tall.

You too are welcome to believe whatever you want based upon these specious surveys. I know you work with numbers - and they’re probably great when dealing with coin tosses, etc. - but they apparently have nothing of any value to offer us on this subject. Hence, I rely more on the casual anecdote - which you so dismiss - if the person seems reliable, than I would on studies spanning 20% deviation rates.

I try to combine both, as best I can - studies and anecdotal.

:rolleyes:

Your PM.

My reply.

Took me a minute to find the link.

memento - PE Data Site Bugs, Comments, or Suggestions

(Ahhh sucked in!!!)

Wadzilla makes two good points in my opinion.

First, the large variability between studies. Compared to average height or weight for example, penis size average is not known as precisely. A lot of that has to do with measurement technique. It’s all about the fat pad! I don’t even know of one study that mentions the effect of fat pad, or that they controlled for it! How could you have a well done scientific study without precise definition of measurement technique?

Also, a lot of the so called studies are self reported measurements. Is self reported data valid at all? If there is some similarity in results, does that tell us that the data is valid, or that the sloppiness and exaggeration of males that participate is somewhat predictable?

Second, the wide variety of humans on the planet makes me wonder if any one study has been big and diverse enough to give an overall average for all human males. Even if that was known, wouldn’t it be more interesting to know separate averages of different races and regions?

I had a poster in college that was called Penises of the World (or something like that).

The Blue Whale was the largest, I think, with a ten foot member.

Man was nearer the bottom of the scale at 5” (although we are bigger than any other primate).

Works for me.

:)

Complete with pictures?

Maybe that’s what I needed to get women to come visit my dorm room.

OK… I finally got time to analyze the pre-penis enlargement BPEL from the forum members. I have attached a Minitab graph with lots of data on it, but I know it has to be approved before it can be displayed. Here’s a summary of the results, though.

First, I want to explain that since each member who voted used a 0.25 inch range, I used the midpoint between the two ranges as the value for the calculations. In other words, if you selected a range of 6 to 6.25 inches when you voted, I used a value of 6.125 inches for the calculations.

* The P-value of 0.005 on the Anderson Darling Normality Test indicates that the data is clearly not normal. That means it doesn’t follow the normal bell curve and it is skewed to one side.
* The mean BPEL of the sample group is 6.2859, but the median is only 6.125, so my original assumption was correct. The difference between the mean and median wasn’t as much as I was expecting (or hoping for), but there is still a difference.
* The standard deviation of .7815 means that 68% of penises in this survey fall between 5.5044 inches and 7.0674 inches. That is what statisticians would consider a truly normal range. In other words, a 7 inch dick isn’t big and a 5.6 inch dick isn’t small (although I’m sure we’d all rather have the 7 inch one). Once you go over 7 inches you’re getting into the range where statistically you have a big dick. It’s like looking at people’s height. You don’t really think a guy who is 6’1” tall is all that tall, but someone who is 6’4” is. 6’1” is relatively normal. 6’4” is unusual.
* If your penis is bigger than 6.875 inches, you are in the top 25%.
* If your penis is smaller than 5.875, you are in the bottom 25%.

One problem I have with this survey is that it would be easy for people to overstate their own penis size. Also, it is difficult to determine if everyone is measuring the same way, however the large sample size reduces the effect of measurement error. The mean BPEL shown by this survey is significantly larger than the BPEL shown by other surveys, so I have to wonder if some people were inclined to give their penis an extra half inch (or more) when the voted. It seems odd that people drawn to a penis enlargement website would have larger penises than the general population.

I’d like to analyze more of the data from some of these other studies, so if anyone can point me in the direction of the raw data I’ll analyze it, too. The graph definitely shows that the data does not follow a normal distribution curve, and we should be looking at the median and quartiles when judging ourselves against others.

Good work, sam1966.

Your findings are fairly consistent with the existing surveys.

We do tell people what the right way to measure is, but it’s a fair point - who knows what people do?

Yup.

I had off-campus housing.

We had no problem getting women to come over. Big gay Jay brought some boys home too - hey, he could do what he wanted in his room.

What other data do you have where the measurements are specifically labeled as “bone pressed”?
I think members on this forum are more aware of the bone pressed “trick”, and therefore report longer measurements than other surveys.
Before I found this site, I never would have thought it fair or accurate to jam the ruler as far into my gut as possible, but here, that is the standard!

Right here:

Penis Size: The True Average

There are two surveys which measured BPEL, and both of them came back with mean BPELs less than 6 inches.

Before I knew about PE, I thought of my ‘size’ as measured from the side, which in my case is in fact more than my BPEL. Don’t know how common this is.

It’s another fair point.

I doubt many of the surveys use the same frame of reference for measuring (other than the two that sam1966 pointed out).

The Israeli survey does in fact state that they pressed into the fat pad to measure.

Para Goomba states that the German study was BPEL results, but the Medline abstract does not describe the measurement technique.

edit: Never mind. Para later states that the full text article describes the german measurements as BP. I figured he wouldn’t say it without checking.

So you are right. 2 studies showing average BPEL less than 6"!