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The article seems more about the underlying causality, and less about the charts' specific role in misleading. To pick one example, the scatterplot chart isn't
by gcanyon 1y ago
The article seems more about the underlying causality, and less about the charts' specific role in misleading. To pick one example, the scatterplot chart isn't misleading: it's just a humble chart doing exactly what it's supposed to do: present some data in a way that makes clear the relationship (not necessarily causality!) between saturated fat consumption and heart disease.
The underlying issue (which the article discusses to some extent) is how confounding factors can make the data misleading/allow the data to be misinterpreted.
To discuss "The Illusion of Causality in Charts" I'd want to consider how one chart type vs. another is more susceptible to misinterpretation/more misleading than another. I don't know if that's actually true -- I haven't worked up some examples to check -- but that's what I was hoping for here.
- melagonster 1y agoa famous example is that bar chart always better than pie chart (see the advice from page of pie chart on ggplot website).
- hammock 1y ago> the scatterplot chart isn't misleading Even leaving out the data (which you rightly point out) you are forced to choose what to plot on x and y, which by convention will communicate IV and DV respectively whether you like it or not.
- rcxdude 1y agoTrue. Arguably this is a harmful convention: with any scatter plot you should consider the axes could be flipped.
- the-mitr 1y agoYou can check out some work of Howard wainer in this regard. Graphic discovery, visual revelations etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Wainer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Wainer
- ebertini76 1y agoHey, I am the author of this article. Really good point! I will try to think more deeply about whether some charts induce more of these effects than others. In any case, what is interesting is that different charts have different ways of implying causality. This is what I try to do towards the end of the article.
- gcanyon 1y agoNow I get to fumble trying to be polite :-) But seriously, it's a nicely-put-together article in several ways, despite my criticism.