The individual human being is unique, in that he has a combination of properties and attitudes that is not found in any other human being. There is one example, the identical twin, that could be considered as an exception to the rule, but even the identical twin differs in a lot of subtle respects from his alter ego.
The individuals are different, because they have a lot of properties, and each of these properties come in a lot of strengths. However, about the latter, the way the strength of a specific property varies, from something simple like body length to something complicated like creativity, something very definite can be said. This very definite thing is that all these properties are distributed among the entire population in the same way, which is called the normal or Gaussian distribution, or curve.
The peculiarity of this property cannot be underrated. It applies to very, very differing human properties, and almost more remarkable, it also applies to a great number of things in the world of physics, chemistry, etcetera. The reason it does so has been discovered by mathematicians, in that it applies to any property that depends itself to more than four or five other properties. The simple example, body length, depends on a number of genetic and environmental factors. The net result is what we already know: most people are of about average length, and the more one deviates from the average, the less one finds examples of this. Most people are between 1.60 and 1.80 meters long, and much less between 2.00 and 2.20. The Gaussian distribution says how much less this number is, quit precisely. The easiest way to see this is through the associated curve, the Gaussian curve. The number of people between two values is the area below the curve between the two values, and one can easily see that most people can be found around the average value.
To describe the curve one also frequently uses a property called the standard deviation. This is determined by the number of people that differs from the average. If everyone has the average value, this obviously is zero, there is no deviation from the average. The important thing about this that for the Gaussian curve the percentage of the total number between one standard deviation above and below the average is about two thirds, i.e. a large majority, and the percentage between two standard deviations above and below the average is 95 %, i.e. almost all. All mass manufacturers of clothes, shoes, gloves, etc. use these numbers to determine how many items to make of the different sizes of their products. Obviously, he must certainly cater for those that differ one standard deviation and some more, but those that differ by two standard deviations or more are less lucky. They have to go to the specialist makers that use hand tools.
As stated above, the Gaussian curve applies not only to the length of trousers and dresses, but to almost any human property. It would be very unwise to treat these other properties in another way than the clothe manufacturers do. So firstly one must realize that one cannot treat everybody the same. Secondly, one must realize that one cannot satisfy everyone or everyone’s needs. Thirdly, one should concentrate ones efforts at the average value.
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