5 ms·

I have, in my life as a web developer, had multiple "academics" urgently demand that i remove error bands, bars, notes about outliers, confidence intervals etc

I have, in my life as a web developer, had multiple "academics" urgently demand that i remove error bands, bars, notes about outliers, confidence intervals etc from graphics at the last minute so people are not "confused" Its depressing

Maxion 3y ago
The depressing part is that many people actually need them removed in order to not be confused.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  But aren’t they still confused without the error bars? Or confidently incorrect? And who could blame them, when that’s the information they’re given? It seems like the options are: - no error bars which mislead everyone - error bars which confuse some people and accurately inform others
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Yep. See also: Complaints about poll results in the last few rounds of elections in the US. "The polls said Hillary would win!!!" (no, they didn't). It's not just error margins, it's an absence of statistics of any sort in secondary school (for a large number of students).
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Yeah, when people remove that kind of information to not confuse people, they are aiming into making them confidently incorrect.
  - Izkata 3y ago
    After a lot of back-and-forth some years ago, we settled on a third option: If the error bars would be too big (for whatever definition of "too big" we used back then), don't show the data and instead show a "not enough data points" message. Otherwise, if we were showing the data, show it without the error bars.
- ta8645 3y ago
  That is baldly justifying a feeling of superiority and authority over others. It's not your job to trick other people "for their own good". Present honest information, as accurately as possible, and let the chips fall where they may. Anything else is a road to disaster.
echelon 3y ago
Some people won't understand error bars. Given that we evolved from apes and that there's a distribution of intelligences, skill sets, and interests across all walks of society, I don't place blame on anyone. We're just messy as a species. It'll be okay. Everything is mostly working out.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  > We're just messy as a species. It'll be okay. Everything is mostly working out. {Confidence interval we won't cook the planet}
esafak 3y ago
Statistically illiterate people should not be making decisions. I'd take that as a signal to leave.
- sonicanatidae 3y ago
  Statistically speaking, you're in the minority. ;)
  - knicholes 3y ago
    Maybe not in the minority for taking it as a signal to leave, but in the minority for actually acting on that signal.
    - sonicanatidae 3y ago
      That's fair. :)
RandomLensman 3y ago
It really depends what it is for. If the assessment is that the data is solid enough for certain decisions you might indeed only show a narrow result in order not to waste time and attention. If it is for a scientific discussion then it is different, of course.
strangattractor 3y ago
Sometimes they do this because the data doesn't entirely support their conclusions. Error bars, noting data outliers etc often make this glaringly apparent.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cycomanic 3y ago
Can you be more specific (maybe point to a website)? I am trying to imagine the scenarios where a web developer would work with academics and does the data processing for the representation? Of the few scenarios that I could think about where an academic works directly with a web developer they would almost always provide the full figures.
aftoprokrustes 3y ago
I obviously cannot assess the validity of the requests you got, but as a former researcher turned product developer, I had several times to take the decision _not_ to display confidence intervals in products, and to keep them as an internal feature for quality evaluation. Why, I hear you ask? Because, for the kind of system of models I use (detailed stochastic simulations of human behavior), there is no good definition of a confidence interval that can be computed in a reasonable amount of computing time. One can design confidence measures that can be computed without too much overhead, but they can be misleading if you do not have a very good understanding of what they represent and do not represent. To simplify, the error bars I was able to compute were mostly a measure of precision, but I had no way to assess accuracy, which is what most people assume error bars mean. So showing the error bars would have actually given a false sense of quality, which I did not feel confident to give. So not displaying those measures was actually done as a service to the user. Now, one might make the argument that if we had no way to assess accuracy, the type of models we used was just rubbish and not much more useful than a wild guess... Which is a much wider topic, and there are good arguments for and against this statement.
amai 3y ago
Most people really don’t understand error bars, see https://errorbars.streamlit.app/ https://errorbars.streamlit.app/

Maxion 3y ago

The depressing part is that many people actually need them removed in order to not be confused.

nonethewiser 3y ago
But aren’t they still confused without the error bars? Or confidently incorrect? And who could blame them, when that’s the information they’re given? It seems like the options are: - no error bars which mislead everyone - error bars which confuse some people and accurately inform others
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Yep. See also: Complaints about poll results in the last few rounds of elections in the US. "The polls said Hillary would win!!!" (no, they didn't). It's not just error margins, it's an absence of statistics of any sort in secondary school (for a large number of students).
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Yeah, when people remove that kind of information to not confuse people, they are aiming into making them confidently incorrect.
- Izkata 3y ago
  After a lot of back-and-forth some years ago, we settled on a third option: If the error bars would be too big (for whatever definition of "too big" we used back then), don't show the data and instead show a "not enough data points" message. Otherwise, if we were showing the data, show it without the error bars.
ta8645 3y ago
That is baldly justifying a feeling of superiority and authority over others. It's not your job to trick other people "for their own good". Present honest information, as accurately as possible, and let the chips fall where they may. Anything else is a road to disaster.

echelon 3y ago

Some people won't understand error bars. Given that we evolved from apes and that there's a distribution of intelligences, skill sets, and interests across all walks of society, I don't place blame on anyone. We're just messy as a species. It'll be okay. Everything is mostly working out.

ethbr1 3y ago
> We're just messy as a species. It'll be okay. Everything is mostly working out. {Confidence interval we won't cook the planet}

esafak 3y ago

Statistically illiterate people should not be making decisions. I'd take that as a signal to leave.

sonicanatidae 3y ago
Statistically speaking, you're in the minority. ;)
- knicholes 3y ago
  Maybe not in the minority for taking it as a signal to leave, but in the minority for actually acting on that signal.
  - sonicanatidae 3y ago
    That's fair. :)

RandomLensman 3y ago

It really depends what it is for. If the assessment is that the data is solid enough for certain decisions you might indeed only show a narrow result in order not to waste time and attention. If it is for a scientific discussion then it is different, of course.

strangattractor 3y ago

Sometimes they do this because the data doesn't entirely support their conclusions. Error bars, noting data outliers etc often make this glaringly apparent.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cycomanic 3y ago

Can you be more specific (maybe point to a website)? I am trying to imagine the scenarios where a web developer would work with academics and does the data processing for the representation? Of the few scenarios that I could think about where an academic works directly with a web developer they would almost always provide the full figures.

aftoprokrustes 3y ago

I obviously cannot assess the validity of the requests you got, but as a former researcher turned product developer, I had several times to take the decision _not_ to display confidence intervals in products, and to keep them as an internal feature for quality evaluation. Why, I hear you ask? Because, for the kind of system of models I use (detailed stochastic simulations of human behavior), there is no good definition of a confidence interval that can be computed in a reasonable amount of computing time. One can design confidence measures that can be computed without too much overhead, but they can be misleading if you do not have a very good understanding of what they represent and do not represent. To simplify, the error bars I was able to compute were mostly a measure of precision, but I had no way to assess accuracy, which is what most people assume error bars mean. So showing the error bars would have actually given a false sense of quality, which I did not feel confident to give. So not displaying those measures was actually done as a service to the user. Now, one might make the argument that if we had no way to assess accuracy, the type of models we used was just rubbish and not much more useful than a wild guess... Which is a much wider topic, and there are good arguments for and against this statement.

amai 3y ago

Most people really don’t understand error bars, see https://errorbars.streamlit.app/ https://errorbars.streamlit.app/