Actually I think it is that they understand neither. The opposite side of this is that all the children in Lake Woebegone are above average. Different joke, same point.
Not that people do understand the difference between mean and median, which a lot of income inequality discussions illustrates.
It is actually possible for every point in a distribution to be above (or below) average… provided that it’s a continuous distribution.
But that’s beside the point. The point is that, in most real-world distributions (such as intelligence), the mean and median are usually pretty close to each other, if not exactly the same, and so one should expect that about half the population will be below average, and not be shocked by that fact.
Seems to me that these are presented exactly as anyone would present a direct quote, and that he may have inserted the generic “Newspaper Headline” or “Member of Congress” as a way to shield the actual idiots from further embarrassment.
Since no one seems to be able to find any similar attributable quote from any newspaper or congressman, these are likely fabricated. Whether or not that is a big deal is a matter of opinion I suppose. I find it to be lazy at best. In trying to show that humans (especially ones of a class that should know better) are just idiots he has fabricated a story when with just a little research he could easily show real examples (Something that John Stewart does on a nightly basis).
The other example that has only been mentioned in this thread is the example of the complete misrepresentation of the GWB quote and context. The author of the article explains that there is not a shred of truth to any aspect of Mr. Tyson’s story about the GWB “quote”.
Does anyone here want to defend Mr. Tyson in this instance?
Yep, what we need to do is vote out all the congressmen average and below and tahdah!, the remaining are above average! 
From the link above-
If you think you understand something that “the worlds greatest scientist” doesn’t, you probably don’t know as much as you think you do.
I did a little Googling on this, and it does look like Tyson might have been pulling that out of his ass. The video was from 2008, I believe. So it looks like in 2008 he conflated some events from 5-7 years earlier and embellished a story to criticize a president he didn’t much like. He should have done better. He deserves some criticism for this, and owning up to it would be nice.
I just don’t think it’s a career-tarnishing blemish. The Federalist seems to be saying, “After this, how can you trust Neil deGrasse Tyson about anything!?” Which is fairly crazy. He can tell some lazy stories to make a political jab and still be right about global warming.
Defend the fact that Tyson misattrubtes GWB’s 2003 speech dealing with the shuttle disaster " He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”" to just after 2001 while giving a 2008 speech at The Amazing Meeting.
Shrug - skimpy research on a small talk 6 years ago fails to ping my outrage meeter. Badly done, of course, but hardly worth disturbing all those electrons just to get the truth out.
“What’s the deal? Is this true, false, or other?”
Seems like the accusations are true. Though most of the responses here would probably choose “other”. They can’t call the accusation false and they can’t bring themselves to say true.
*Every *point? How would that work?
If he’s just telling jokes, if he’s just being a comedian, then it’s OK. I didn’t see the talk, so maybe he is just doing stand-up. I don’t think that’s what’s going on there, though.