Should you use the median or mean to describe a data set if the data are not skewed? Are the  standard deviation or the interquartile range factors?

• You may read in the newspaper that a study of a new drug for cancer "increased survival by an average of eight weeks." It turns out that this is a median, and it is used for complicated statistical reasons. But in a perfect world, would you prefer to know the increase in mean or median survival?
• If the median house price is $1.9m, does that necessarily mean that half of the houses on the block are worth less than $1.9m and half worth more? How do ties figure in?
  

Your initial post should be 150 to 250 words in length. Respond to at least two of your classmates' posts by Day 7 in at least one paragraph.