Chapter 1

Setting the Scene

‘What is the use of a book’, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?’

Lewis Carroll

1.1 Graphics in action

The code for producing Figure 1.1 is:

library(ggplot2); library(ggthemes)
data(SpeedSki, package = "GDAdata")
ggplot(SpeedSki, aes(x=Speed, fill=Sex)) + xlim(160, 220) +
  geom_histogram(binwidth=2.5) + xlab("Speed (km/hr)") +
  facet_wrap(~Sex, ncol=1) + ylab("") +
  theme(legend.position="none")

Figure 1.1

Figure showing histograms of speeds reached at the 2011 World Speed Skiing Championships. Source: www.fis-ski.com. There were more male competitors than females, yet the fastest group of females were almost as fast as the fastest group of males. The female competitors were all either fast or (relatively) slow—or were they?

Histograms of speeds reached at the 2011 World Speed Skiing Championships. Source: www.fis-ski.com. There were more male competitors than females, yet the fastest group of females were almost as fast ...

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