On The Fringes Of The Bell Curve
First, I'll state the obvious. There is a lot of stuff in this world. I'm talking everything: doctors, harmonicas, dogs, you name it. And no matter what stuff you are talking about, it adopts certain characteristics when evaluated in certain ways. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Bell Curve:
The Bell Curve
We tend to think of the Bell Curve in a very quantitative way; usually as a strict evaluative exercise like plotting standardized test scores. But the Bell Curve applies to any large population. To review, most of everything is in the middle: most of the pizzas you've eaten in your lifetime are about the same. A few have been notably good or bad. You might have had one in particular from a Pizza Hut buffet in Mason City, IA that gave you food poisoning, the far left data point on the Bell Curve.
The ends of the Curve are rare indeed, but they do exist.
Think about this in the context of Dog Intelligence. There are many recognized tests of canine aptitude, including the Rover Rohrshach, the Iowa Test Of Basic Dog Skills, and the "Where's Your Bone?" measurement, to name a few. If we were to administer these tests to all dogs on Earth, and then plot the results, they would more or less look like the Bell Curve you see above.
And now you see: By definition, somewhere the smartest dog in the world sits, knowing exactly where her bone is, when she put it there, and why.
"Can't we talk about something besides where my bone is?"
I think about the Bell Curve all the time, and I predict at least some of you will think about it in the days to come.
The dentist who's about to operate that drill very near your nerve endings? Pray he's on the right side of the curve. And remember: Everybody's in the curve, somewhere.
Just like that patty melt you're about to order will be somewhere on the Patty Melt Curve. U.S. Senators have Curves. Where does Jesse Helmes rank on the Handsome Senator Curve? Liz Phair on the Pipeline Rock Star Crush Curve? Far right outlier.
A totally gratuitous Liz Phair photo
Somewhere in this world, the far right data point on the IT Support Workers Curve just retrieved a file somebody thought was lost to the aether, while the far left data point on the Paperboy Delivery Curve just broke his third window of the morning.
Here's hoping somebody reading this does something today that breaks the curve to the right.
9:38:06 AM 
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