This was why Molenaar called this assumption the ergodic switch: it takes something nonergodic and pretends it is ergodic. We might think of the ergodic switch as a kind of intellectual “bait and switch” where the lure of averagarianism dupes scientists, educators, business leaders, hiring managers, and physicians into believing that they are learning something meaningful about an individual by comparing her to an average, when they are really ignoring everything important about her.
