CHAPTER 6 FACTS AND TRUTH THE BLURRED EDGE OF PERSUASION AND DECEPTION
EVERY CHART is a manipulation.
Behind every chart are dozens of decisions, conscious and subconscious, that influence what someone sees and thinks about that chart.
This idea makes some people uncomfortable. Data visualization has what’s called “high facticity”—that is, people feel like charts represent some reality accurately.1 That data itself is dispassionate. That numbers don’t lie. The whole point of data is that it’s objective, right? And visualization is just a way to show data.
Well, yes. But also, no. Data visualization is not just a visualization of facts; it’s the manipulation of them. Here’s an exercise to reinforce the idea. I need to plot year-by-year data ...
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