Visual Revelations

In the transactions between scientists and the media, influence flows in both directions. About 25 years ago, I wrote an oft-cited article with the ironic title, “How To Display Data Badly.” In it, I chose a dozen or so examples of flawed displays and suggested paths toward improvement. Two major newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post, were the source of most of my examples, which were drawn over a remarkably short period of time. It wasn’t hard to find examples of bad graphs. Happily, in the intervening years, those same papers have become increasingly aware of the canons of good practice and improved their data displays profoundly. Indeed, when one considers both the complexity of the data often displayed and the short time intervals permitted for their preparation, the results are frequently remarkable. Recently, I picked out a few especially notable graphs from The New York Times. Over the same time period, I noticed graphs in the scientific literature whose data had the same features, but were decidedly inferior. At first, I thought it felt more comfortable in the ‘good old days’ when we did it right and the media’s results were flawed. But, in fact, the old days were not so good. Graphical practices in scientific journals have not evolved as fast as those of the mass media. It is time we learned from their example.