Department of bad graphs
I try to be pretty careful with my charts and graphs, but I made a mistake this morning when I graphed Vanity Fair's poll showing that most people can't confidently explain the public option. Google Spreadsheet began the Y axis at 20 percent, and I didn't notice. As commenter Volpevi pointed out, that "biased this graph to over exaggerate the relative size of 'No' response ... Thus it appears as if the No's outweigh Yes's by almost a factor of 8. When in reality it's only about 2.5. (66 vs 26)." Here's how the graph should look:
Apologies.
By
Ezra Klein
|
December 7, 2009; 4:02 PM ET
Categories:
Charts and Graphs
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Posted by: arnold104 | December 7, 2009 4:21 PM | Report abuse
Still pretty bad, and I wonder how many of the third would confidently explain the public option as "government takeover of health care".
Posted by: ChicagoIndependant | December 7, 2009 4:51 PM | Report abuse
It should have been cut off at 8%.
Let's be honest here, there's no way 28% of the American people could explain the public option correctly. Heck, 28% of Senate staffers probably couldn't explain the public option correctly...
Google was just fixing your graph. They're very good, you know.
Posted by: theorajones1 | December 7, 2009 4:55 PM | Report abuse
This kind of data should really be presented in a pie chart (presumably the missing 8% are "don't know").
Posted by: erh1103 | December 7, 2009 5:37 PM | Report abuse
Haha, I was complaining about that graph for exactly that reason. I knew better than to doubt your dedication to the presentational data arts, but I'm glad you took the opportunity to turn it into a PSA.
That said, I don't really get why they manipulated the original that way, though, since it's already a really striking gap. Fudging the margins to make it seem even vaster just hurts your credibility.
Posted by: HerooftheBeach | December 7, 2009 10:10 PM | Report abuse
Google is not alone in setting up the axis like that. The thing is, it's not really the software vendors' fault; the requirements I've seen indicate the customers want that behavior. This makes it a case of the customer always being right, even when objectively wrong.
Posted by: KenInIL | December 8, 2009 11:17 AM | Report abuse
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LOL
They make those funny graphs over at Fox, I think.:)