salon:

Researchers polled over 15,000 men on the length and girth of their manhood, and the results are…surprising

According to the study, published this week in BJU International, the average penis is 5.16 inches long and 4.6 inches around when erect, and 3.6 inches long and 3.7 inches around when flaccid. The 15,521 participants in the 20 compiled studies ranged in age from 17 to 91, and exhibited quite a range in size. Only about 2.28 percent had abnormally small penises, which the researchers classified as being two standard deviations below the mean; the same percentage of men had abnormally large penises, two standard deviations above the mean.

A final interesting tidbit: The study finds no correlation between a man’s foot size and penis length.

I just… what? Did you seriously just report that only about 2% of men fall 2+ standard deviations below the mean as if this were a new research finding? And not just simply how normally distributed data works? On any type of normally distributed data that we collect? Ever?

You’ve just essentially reported something equivalent to “Look! 9 out of 10 researchers agree. Men who are 6 feet tall are 72 inches in height.” *headdesk* Oh, dear.

Please, Salon, I love you for many things. But if you want to report on science results, find a writer who knows something about how basic statistics work.