Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!herbie
From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Watch them closely when they quote statistics
Message-ID: <1562@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 20:12:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1562
Posted: Thu Jul 25 20:12:35 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 07:56:45 EDT
References: <1519@watdcsu.UUCP> <1520@watdcsu.UUCP> <28365@lanl.ARPA>
Reply-To: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo
Lines: 53
Xref: watmath net.women:6640 net.politics:10070
Summary: 

i had a look at the newspaper article that David was refering to when
he started this discussion.  in the pie charts, a wedge labelled 40%
actually occupied about 47% of the area and another part labelled 24%
occupied closer to 20% of the area.  lest you think that the difference
isn't all that great, i suggest you draw a chart and divide it up
accurately using a protractor.  visually, the difference is
tremendous.  another chart had a slice labelled 49%, but occupied only
40% of the area, and 34% occupied about 45% of the area.  what is even
more interesting is that in none of the pie charts do the figures add
up to 100%.  in the corner of the diagram, the source cited is ILO.
i'm not sure if this means that the actual pie charts were reproduced
or they were just the source of the numbers.  whatever the source, the
figures are grossly misleading and are also the thing that people
remember the easiest.

the bar chart representing proportion of women in the workforce is just
as bad.  for one thing, the ratio of the number of male figures to
female figures is much larger than the percentage figures on the
labels.  for another, the male figures are physically larger then the
female figures, although one supposes that one male figure equals one
female figure in the chart.  the worst thing, and slightly more subtle,
but more damaging is that the file cabinets in which these figures are
placed are drawn in prespective while the figures are identical in size
from front to back.  this makes the male figures in the back appear
much larger than the female figures in front.

it is unknown whether the person who drew these figures had these
effects in mind when they were designed, but they definitely are
slanted toward a viewpoint that women are overwhelmingly overworked and
discriminated against.  the numbers in the figures support this view,
but not in the visual proportions implied.  i don't think it is
coincidence that the newspaper article was about how far women still
had to go in fighting discrimination.  i think that the
misrepresentation made by the diagrams certainly influences opinions,
but can make some of the claims in the article less believeable.

there was a book several years ago that i read that was titled
something like "How to Lie With Figures" or something like that.  it is
entirely devoted to the techniques such as described above so that
people reading papers and such would not be caught by visually
misrepresenting figures.

i am not judging content of the articles but the misleading method
of visual representation of numbers clearly indicated in the diagrams.

Herb Chong...

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

UUCP:  {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!water!watdcsu!herbie
CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet
ARPA:  herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
NETNORTH, BITNET, EARN: herbie@watdcs, herbie@watdcsu