Mean average The practice of quantifying humans, promoted by those with a fondness for graphs, has warped scientific thinking and society

re you Norma, Typical Woman?” With that headline, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, an Ohio newspaper, launched a contest in 1945 to discover the woman whose body matched an alabaster statue, “Norma”, sculpted by Abram Belskie and American obstetrician Robert L Dickinson. Their “Norma” and “Normman” statues were based on measurements taken from 15,000 young women and men, almost exclusively white and ablebodied. Nearly 4,000 women