Sunday Series: Leaven And Statistics

"Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." (Matthew 13:33)

This scripture is one of Jesus' parables from his ministry. It seems to be saying that we are to be the leaven of the earth- at least that is what I get out of this scripture. And leaven makes bread rise and become better. What a wonderful concept- that we are to make the world a better place. This is our mission, as members of the Church, to make the world a better place. There are multiple ways to understand this principle, and this is the one that I thought of today.

In statistics, there are points called "outliers" that fall outside of the overall pattern of the data (the technical way to find it uses the median and interquartile range, but we won't go into that now). Suffice it to say that the outlier breaks the pattern by sitting either far above or below the majority of the data.

These outliers affect the mean (the average value of the data set). In fact, they pull the mean towards them. Even just one point can change the average of the entire data series. It has to do with the method used to find the mean, which I'm sure you all know (you add together all the values and then divide by how many values there are).  So if one of the values is very large- larger than any of the others- it will increase the average. For example, let's compare the average of 1,2,3,4, and 5, to the average of 1,2,3,4, and 10.

1+2+3+4+5=15/5=3

1+2+3+4+10= 20/5=4

It's the same amount of values, but the fifth value is larger in the second data set, and that value increases the mean. Imagine how much more dramatic the change in the average would be with more data points, and with more of a gap between the outlier and the rest of the data!

I would like to suggest that we, as members of the Church, are to be outliers. If every person was graphed as a data point, based on some spiritual variable (obeying the commandments perhaps, or listening to the prophets), I would like to suggest that we would be outliers sitting far above the rest of the data. We are in the data set but not of the data set (see what I did there?). And by being so far away from the values of the rest of the world, we pull up the average of the entire population. We make it rise. And the best part is, there doesn't have to be a lot of outliers to pull up the average.

Kind of like leaven makes bread rise, even though it's only present in small amounts.

One of the things I love about the statistics metaphor is that even if there is only one outlier, it still can change the average of all of the data. We as individuals can make a difference- we can make the world a better place, even if it's only a little. We can bring up the average of the world simply by following the Church's standards. That's pretty cool, don't you think?

So I challenge you to be an outlier from the world today. Live with higher standards, be better, become more. And by doing so, working together, we will pull up the world's average. We will rise.