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I agree with you that replacing white with purple is not consistent, but I don't agree with your conclusion. Depression is not something (as far as the current
by roel_v 13y ago
I agree with you that replacing white with purple is not consistent, but I don't agree with your conclusion.
Depression is not something (as far as the current state of knowledge goes) that can be completely eradicated. The study was about comparing depression rates globally. In that context, taking the average (or mean, but let's assume it's distributed normally) depression rate as the 'baseline' (i.e., the middle) is not that strange. This way, the map shows not absolute depression rates, but rather the position of each country relative to the baseline value. Which is, I think, what people are most interested in - if you tell me 'country xyz has a depression rate of 2%', most people have no idea. The whole study is not about absolute depression rates, but about rates relative to other countries.
I'd even go as far as defending the purple. Remember, cartography is not about choosing color according to a rigid logical scheme, it's about conveying information. Now, I think these colors convey the message of which areas in the world have the highest depression rates, and which ones the lowest, quite well. If white would have been left in as the color for countries with baseline values, those white blobs would have been distracting and would have looked as if no data was available. Instead, what we have is a map that shows in a visually uninterrupted way the rate of depression relative to the baseline, with intensity increasing where you go further away from the baseline.
You proposal for using white to red would be OK if it were about showing absolute depression rates, but that's a far less interesting way of looking at the data.
- jader201 13y agoYour defense almost makes sense, but it still leaves out the fact that it grades from red to white, and blue to white, until it hits the middle -- at which point it suddenly turns purple. To go with your defense, it should grade from red to purple between the highest point and the mean, and blue to purple between the lowest point and the mean.
- roel_v 13y agoWell actually my whole second paragraph is about the purple :) The point of going from blue to white is to to visually convey that more pale colors mean 'closer to the baseline'. I.e., pale blue is 'slightly better than baseline', pale red 'slightly worse than baseline'. If you were to blend from blue to purple, that wouldn't work any more. But if you leave in the white in the middle, it looks as if there are 'no data' spots. Hence, use variation in intensities for non-baseline, different color for baseline. Cartography is not about conceptual consistency, it's about conveying information. I challenge you to make a map that conveys the message better than the choices made in the map in the OP (apart from subjective wah wah like 'blue is democrats' as was laughably brought up elsewhere in this thread).
- jader201 13y agoI sort of see that, but I don't understand why baseline (purple) needs to be set that much apart from slightly above (pink but almost white) or slightly below (blue but almost white), which are on completely different scales of color. Or maybe I just don't understand how cartography works, but something about that still seems off.