Fact checking
Oct. 4th, 2012 06:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_rose99Caught a glimpse of muted fact checking on the debate this morning.
Comparing unemployment rates for the last 8 or so presidents. They used 3D bar charts, a single number for each president.
This is toward the top of the list of how to mislead with statistics. A single number for four to eight years of a varying metric? It isn't just an oversimplification, it can (and I think DOES) lead the viewer to the wrong conclusions about unemployment for each of those presidents.
I would recommend a scatterplot with dates on the x-axis. Perhaps summarize by week or month (one point is a week or month), making the different presidents different colors. This would better convey the true variation in such a metric, giving us a better yardstick for judging which presidents had different employment rates.
Comparing unemployment rates for the last 8 or so presidents. They used 3D bar charts, a single number for each president.
This is toward the top of the list of how to mislead with statistics. A single number for four to eight years of a varying metric? It isn't just an oversimplification, it can (and I think DOES) lead the viewer to the wrong conclusions about unemployment for each of those presidents.
I would recommend a scatterplot with dates on the x-axis. Perhaps summarize by week or month (one point is a week or month), making the different presidents different colors. This would better convey the true variation in such a metric, giving us a better yardstick for judging which presidents had different employment rates.
