B iological data often show a great deal of variability. This means that repeat readings obtained in biological investigations often differ from each other. The processes studied in biology involve living organisms and the products of living organisms. As there is so much variability in living organisms, these investigations are much less predictable than investigations in chemistry and physics.
To allow us to analyse and draw conclusions from these variable data, we can use averages and measures of dispersion. The three types of average that you’ll come across in biology are the mean, the median and the mode (Figure 1).
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