Although there is a common tip in critical thinking classes that manipulating the Y-axis range can lead to misleading presentation of a difference, I believe in this particular graph, which clearly provides numbers to compare, you can’t say it is misleading.
People can read and compare the values and draw their own conclusions. And I am saying that without any consideration of the distros discussed, since I am impartial to distros, I like all distros I have tried.
This “study” almost certainly must have way deeper assumptions- and metrics- related problems to start with, so even finding myself having this argument is preposterous. But I am just pointing out the misapplication of critical thinking guideline, and this is a valid point which I insist everyone who relies on to consider, if you care about critical thinking at all.
No one said you are doing layman statistics, the pasted comment is from another discussion, provided here for context, and for very good reasons. It aligns with obvious misconceptions about statistics that should be pointed out. Probability and statistics are thorny subjects that nonetheless are inevitable in order to understand the world surrounding us, material, social, and economic, so yes I will nitpick here and call out the misapplication of canned critical thinking thought-terminating cliches.
I am not trying to apply a “critical thinking guideline” I saw elsewhere. I’ve not taken any “critical thinking classes”. I’m more insulted that you think I couldn’t have possibly just thought of that comment myself. It’s not a particularly crazy comment to make, and I don’t see why any individual who knows how to read graphs couldn’t just happen to make that comment.
Anyway—sure, I never said the graph lied. Perhaps a better wording would be that, regardless of how the information is presented, I don’t think the difference in magnitude between people’s happiness ratings (ignoring the issues with how those ratings were collected and ascertained in the first place) is significant or particularly of note. The Y-axis is chosen so as to visually amplify this difference. I didn’t claim the data presented by the graph was untrue or that reading the graph correctly was too difficult if one wanted to read it properly.
I really did not mean to be insulting. I am just saying chart makers can choose to make a zoom in, and it is not automatically propaganda or something. All this has led people astray of the real issues, like WTF is measuring ‘happiness’ on a 1-10 scale, and what are the metric properties of this 1-10 scale. Then there are all the sampling issues and what have you. I just expected more people discussing this stuff rather than the Y-axis.
I didn’t say it was propaganda—the content of the graph reads as quite clearly silly to me and not trying to make a particularly serious or scientific point. I guess the same reason is why I pointed out the Y-axis instead of the sampling issues, because the sampling issues seem much more self-evident.
Although there is a common tip in critical thinking classes that manipulating the Y-axis range can lead to misleading presentation of a difference, I believe in this particular graph, which clearly provides numbers to compare, you can’t say it is misleading.
People can read and compare the values and draw their own conclusions. And I am saying that without any consideration of the distros discussed, since I am impartial to distros, I like all distros I have tried.
This “study” almost certainly must have way deeper assumptions- and metrics- related problems to start with, so even finding myself having this argument is preposterous. But I am just pointing out the misapplication of critical thinking guideline, and this is a valid point which I insist everyone who relies on to consider, if you care about critical thinking at all.
No one said you are doing layman statistics, the pasted comment is from another discussion, provided here for context, and for very good reasons. It aligns with obvious misconceptions about statistics that should be pointed out. Probability and statistics are thorny subjects that nonetheless are inevitable in order to understand the world surrounding us, material, social, and economic, so yes I will nitpick here and call out the misapplication of canned critical thinking thought-terminating cliches.
I am not trying to apply a “critical thinking guideline” I saw elsewhere. I’ve not taken any “critical thinking classes”. I’m more insulted that you think I couldn’t have possibly just thought of that comment myself. It’s not a particularly crazy comment to make, and I don’t see why any individual who knows how to read graphs couldn’t just happen to make that comment.
Anyway—sure, I never said the graph lied. Perhaps a better wording would be that, regardless of how the information is presented, I don’t think the difference in magnitude between people’s happiness ratings (ignoring the issues with how those ratings were collected and ascertained in the first place) is significant or particularly of note. The Y-axis is chosen so as to visually amplify this difference. I didn’t claim the data presented by the graph was untrue or that reading the graph correctly was too difficult if one wanted to read it properly.
I really did not mean to be insulting. I am just saying chart makers can choose to make a zoom in, and it is not automatically propaganda or something. All this has led people astray of the real issues, like WTF is measuring ‘happiness’ on a 1-10 scale, and what are the metric properties of this 1-10 scale. Then there are all the sampling issues and what have you. I just expected more people discussing this stuff rather than the Y-axis.
I didn’t say it was propaganda—the content of the graph reads as quite clearly silly to me and not trying to make a particularly serious or scientific point. I guess the same reason is why I pointed out the Y-axis instead of the sampling issues, because the sampling issues seem much more self-evident.