Comparing Cats: A Discussion of Similarities & Differences

[tigerluver]

(09-26-2020, 01:21 PM)Shadow Wrote: Here it would be clear, that getting more reliable average weight for population B than for population A. Now if having for population A average of 215 kg and for population B 192 kg it could be said, that average weight of these two populations is 215+192:2= 203,5 kg. It could be said also, that it should be counted (215x8+192x25):33=197,58 kg

The bolded is a weighted average and is the correct way to calculate averages from a pooled sample. Ideally we would also calculate the standard deviation and confidence interval but that requires the individual datapoints unless the source gave the standard deviation somewhere. People will come to find once confidence intervals are applied all the arguments about is the real average is 185 or 195 will be null as... the confidence interval of either value will show there is a 95% chance both these values are reflective of the true population mean. I highly recommend all users interested in average mass to understand confidence intervals and subsequently put their efforts in places where gaps truly do need to be filled. Reply