3 ms·
The first couple of arguments are weak: 1. It's possible to mislead by playing with a single series' scale, you don't need two series to lie-with-statistics...
by einpoklum 2y ago
The first couple of arguments are weak:
1. It's possible to mislead by playing with a single series' scale, you don't need two series to lie-with-statistics...
2. The argument that people will think the data are identical despite the different scale? Don't buy it.
- parpfish 2y agoAgreed. dual scale plots are a great visualization to emphasize correlation between time series. I think of it as depicting an intermediate step in computing a Pearson R when the data have been z-scored but before you’ve collapsed across data points
- hex4def6 2y agoAs an engineer with an oscilloscope, not being able to plot two probes against each other on the same chart would be severely limiting. For instance, imagine a 10x attenuator / amplifier. Maybe the input has a DC offset. Being able to plot the two against each other to look for (e.g) distortion, is invaluable. This is committing the two cardinal sins (judging from some comments here) of not starting at zero and different scales, and yet it's not misleading at all. I can believe dual axis charts allow misleading results, but that doesn't mean they don't have completely legitimate uses.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tofof 2y agoAnd the possibility of fiddling with scale to mislead still exists with side-by-side charts, their #1 alternative. In fact, they use the same misleading scale start and stop points as they criticize in the dual-axis version, so that the "one went up 80%, the other went up only 40%, but it looks like they went up equally" still applies to their replacement.