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This is like a non-programmer telling programmers they need to comment their code better. In a sense, it's probably true most of the time. But it's also sort

This is like a non-programmer telling programmers they need to comment their code better. In a sense, it's probably true most of the time. But it's also sort of hard to take very seriously, because the non-programmer doesn't have any real understanding of the day-to-day challenges and trade-offs faced by people who write code for a living.

SubiculumCode 7y ago
Not to mention that most of us scientists spend quite a bit of time on our figures.
setr 7y ago
One major difference is that code comments aren't at all meant for public consumption (even in open sourced code, comments have a very constrained expected audience). If anything, public documentation is probably a better analogy -- expected audience of developers, but of potentially wildly different experience levels. And in that case, it's generally fair for say a novice to complain about the lack of examples, clarity,etc. And these charts are the same -- this is the primary entry point for a novice in the subject, and a helpful tool for experts. A poor chart would be harmful for all expected audiences.
- knzhou 7y ago
  Scientific figures aren’t designed for public consumption either; the intended audience is the set of other scientists subscribed to that journal.
- nycticorax 7y ago
  The fact the code comments aren't meant for public consumption, and figures are, is completely irrelevant to the analogy. The point is that lots of things we do could be done better, but having an outsider focus on one of them, and tell you you could be doing it better, is not super-helpful. It's like being told by three people that you need to put a cover sheet on your TPS reports. That said, and having looked at the article more carefully (ahem), most of the concrete suggestions they offer are sound, and are things that I think are pretty well-known, at least to the practicing scientists I talk to. "Pie charts are bad", and "Beware of false color images, especially ones that use the 'jet' colormap." are both (parapharases of) statements that I hear from working scientists. But then there's this: "And yet few scientists take the same amount of care with visuals as they do with generating data or writing about it. The graphs and diagrams that accompany most scientific publications tend to be the last things researchers do, says data visualization scientist Seán O’Donoghue. “Visualization is seen as really just kind of an icing on the cake.”" This bears zero resemblance to my experience. Most scientists of my acquaintance make the figures first, and then write the text. And certainly I'd say that more care is taken with the figures than the text. I guess I just feel like I see a certain amount of fetishization of beautiful scientific illustrations (Tufte, etc), out of all proportion to its actual importance to the scientific endeavor. The readers of most scientific articles are probably not going to be flummoxed by a pie chart. And of course, time spent focusing on this kind of stuff is time that might very well be better spent doing experiments.
noobermin 7y ago
I sort of agreed until I googled the author's name. They were a "Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT" which I'll be honest, not sure I'm super aware of what that is, but I imagine they are somewhat knowledgeable.
- solveit 7y ago
  The author has a Master's degree in geology, but she's spent most of her career writing for laypeople and approximately none of her career writing for subject matter experts.

SubiculumCode 7y ago

Not to mention that most of us scientists spend quite a bit of time on our figures.

setr 7y ago

One major difference is that code comments aren't at all meant for public consumption (even in open sourced code, comments have a very constrained expected audience). If anything, public documentation is probably a better analogy -- expected audience of developers, but of potentially wildly different experience levels. And in that case, it's generally fair for say a novice to complain about the lack of examples, clarity,etc. And these charts are the same -- this is the primary entry point for a novice in the subject, and a helpful tool for experts. A poor chart would be harmful for all expected audiences.

knzhou 7y ago
Scientific figures aren’t designed for public consumption either; the intended audience is the set of other scientists subscribed to that journal.
nycticorax 7y ago
The fact the code comments aren't meant for public consumption, and figures are, is completely irrelevant to the analogy. The point is that lots of things we do could be done better, but having an outsider focus on one of them, and tell you you could be doing it better, is not super-helpful. It's like being told by three people that you need to put a cover sheet on your TPS reports. That said, and having looked at the article more carefully (ahem), most of the concrete suggestions they offer are sound, and are things that I think are pretty well-known, at least to the practicing scientists I talk to. "Pie charts are bad", and "Beware of false color images, especially ones that use the 'jet' colormap." are both (parapharases of) statements that I hear from working scientists. But then there's this: "And yet few scientists take the same amount of care with visuals as they do with generating data or writing about it. The graphs and diagrams that accompany most scientific publications tend to be the last things researchers do, says data visualization scientist Seán O’Donoghue. “Visualization is seen as really just kind of an icing on the cake.”" This bears zero resemblance to my experience. Most scientists of my acquaintance make the figures first, and then write the text. And certainly I'd say that more care is taken with the figures than the text. I guess I just feel like I see a certain amount of fetishization of beautiful scientific illustrations (Tufte, etc), out of all proportion to its actual importance to the scientific endeavor. The readers of most scientific articles are probably not going to be flummoxed by a pie chart. And of course, time spent focusing on this kind of stuff is time that might very well be better spent doing experiments.

noobermin 7y ago

I sort of agreed until I googled the author's name. They were a "Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT" which I'll be honest, not sure I'm super aware of what that is, but I imagine they are somewhat knowledgeable.

solveit 7y ago
The author has a Master's degree in geology, but she's spent most of her career writing for laypeople and approximately none of her career writing for subject matter experts.