7 thoughts on “OMG, We’re All Gonna Die, If This Very Bad NYT Graphic is to be Believed”
Grrr….bad data graphics are infuriating.
(1) Notice the categories of extremists: "Islamic" and "Non-Islamic." So the other killers were Jews? Zoroastrians? Lactovegetarians? Impossible to ascertain?
(2) Notice that the cumulative summation of "Deaths from Extremist Attacks" makes it seem as though there's an unstoppable surge in these events, instead of a few every once in a while. And that if you redrew this to include 9/11 rather than excluce it, "Deaths from Extremist Attacks" would have declined to insignificance since then.
they should have used a simple bar graph. This seems to show a rising cumulative rate- for example, the elevated plateau between 2009 Ft Hood shooting and the Boston bombing when the reality is that you should see a spike at each point. If you plotted overall deaths regardless of cause this way, it would show a horrifying slope that appeared to indicate that the world was in a death spiral by falsely conflating overall numbers with rate.
Grrr….bad data graphics are infuriating.
(1) Notice the categories of extremists: "Islamic" and "Non-Islamic." So the other killers were Jews? Zoroastrians? Lactovegetarians? Impossible to ascertain?
(2) Notice that the cumulative summation of "Deaths from Extremist Attacks" makes it seem as though there's an unstoppable surge in these events, instead of a few every once in a while. And that if you redrew this to include 9/11 rather than excluce it, "Deaths from Extremist Attacks" would have declined to insignificance since then.
they should have used a simple bar graph. This seems to show a rising cumulative rate- for example, the elevated plateau between 2009 Ft Hood shooting and the Boston bombing when the reality is that you should see a spike at each point. If you plotted overall deaths regardless of cause this way, it would show a horrifying slope that appeared to indicate that the world was in a death spiral by falsely conflating overall numbers with rate.
But, but, the GOP and Fux News tells me to be so very afraid.
<img src="http://i1.wp.com/thinkbynumbers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/death-and-dollars.jpg" width="525">
What's the significance of all the pope hats?
Jebus, obvs
Lies, damnable lies, and statistics
Bennie Disraeli according to Sam Clemens or some such
There is something fishy about them.