My love for graphs has a most unfortunate side-effect. I end up shouting and swearing at most news reports with line graphs, bar graphs or pie charts. Regularly. In fact, most days.
What I see are spurious graphs, and they make me angry.
What I see are spurious graphs, and they make me angry.
Spurious means:
♦️ of illegitimate birth; bastard
♦️ outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities; false♦️ of falsified or erroneously attributed origin; forged; of a deceitful nature or quality.
Bastard, false, deceitful! Yep, they are some of the words I shout at the TV.
The figures are from real data, right? The plots and lines are mathematics, so how can you argue with them? They have a seductive power; their apparent objectivity gives us a sense of trust.
Reserve that trust: graphs are all too often a tool of propaganda.
Spurious graphs are aimed at deliberately fooling you.