re-posted from dailyKos….. I figured I might as well post about what I know about.
Statistical graphics, properly used, let us envision great quantities of information and to have insights into relationships among variables that would be difficult, if not impossible, to get from words and formulas alone. Improperly used, however, they obfuscate or even distort the truth, or waste paper on data that could be better summarized in a table or in text.
Below the fold, I’ll give some principles of graphical design and some types of graphics. Rather than try to import lots of graphics images, I will try to provide links to various graphs.
I then want to invite you, the readers, to put a graph in a comment; it could be a graph you like, a graph you dislike, a graph you don’t understand, or whatever, and then we can discuss each graphic.
You can look at a talk I gave at Yale University, here (pdf file)
My Yale talk
(I admit it. Part of my reason for doing it this way is that I am a bit lazy. But I also think it’s a good way to guarantee that the discussion is useful).
I sometimes (partially facetiously) refer to myself as “immortal until proven otherwise.” This is different than I have felt about the subject in the past (witness four or five suicide attempts). But I am apparently a survivor and see no reason for that to change. Sure, my body might wear out and no longer function well enough to support keeping my being in contact with the world of our outward shared reality (or is that our shared hallucination?), but I cannot believe that my body is the sum total of who I am (for one thing, there’s just not enough room in there to hold all that is me).