Scientific Communication and Technological Failure presentation for ILTM, July 9, 1998 Dan Little.
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Transcript of Scientific Communication and Technological Failure presentation for ILTM, July 9, 1998 Dan Little.
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Scientific Communication and Technological Failure
presentation for ILTM, July 9, 1998
Dan Little
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Topics
Scientific communication and visual reasoning
Failure in large technology systems The central role of effective scientific
communication in technology management
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Edward Tufte, theorist of scientific graphics A political scientist who has provided a
high standard for evaluating, designing, and criticizing scientific graphics
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983)
Visual Explanations (1997)
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Tufte’s program
“Modern data graphics can do much more than simply substitute for small statistical tables. At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information. Often the most effective way to describe, explore, and summarize a set of numbers -- even a very large set -- is to look at pictures of those numbers.” (VDQI, p. 9)
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Tufte’s program
“Assessments of change, dynamics, and cause and effect are at the heart of thinking and explanation. To understand is to know what cause provokes what effect, by what means, at what rate. How then is such knowledge to be represented?” (VE, p. 9)
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The critique
Tufte finds that much graphic communication is faulty, both in the popular press and in scientific and technical publications. He urges that we develop more sophisticated standards of graphical communication, and adhere to those standards as an element of good thinking and good science.
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The Challenger disaster
The data The analysis The inference and conclusion The presentation
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Tufte’s diagnosis
Tufte argues that a crucial failure in the sequence of analysis, communication, and persuasion that led up to the Challenger disaster was critically flawed scientific communication. The Thiokol engineers reached the right conclusion; but they couched their findings in scientific documents that failed to make the case for non-scientists.
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O-Ring Data
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Bad View (1)
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Bad view (2)
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The Good View
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Importance of scientific communication engineers and technical specialists
need to communicate technical issues effectively to non-specialists
managers need accurate information managers need clear understanding of
technology choices and alternatives managers need to be able to make
appropriate inferences and predictions
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Varieties of scientific communication graphs and charts maps / GIS analysis technical reports / recommendations statistical analysis
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Data tables
What is quantitative reasoning? time series--stock prices, blood pressure bivariate associations -- sunspots and
weather, tension and fracture, economic growth and population growth
multivariate associations -- rainfall, fertilizer, sunshine, pesticide, crop yield
tools: regression, correlation, spatial analysis rates vs aggregate amounts
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data plot
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China Famine
0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
60.00
1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962
Sichuan
Guizhou
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Stomach cancer
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Napoleon’s Army
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Wine Trade
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What is conveyed in a scientific graphic? Analysis, hypothesis formation, and
presentation Information content density of information--data set and
graphic representation presentation of causal relations among
variables in a data set analysis of patterns implicit in a data set
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Scientific graphics and scientific method analysis -- probe data to discover
patterns and associations explanation causal inquiry hypotheses and confirmation; induction,
deduction, abduction validity and scientific method
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Data Table
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statistics
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Data Plot
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Examples of good scientific communication Cholera inference spatial analysis of economic and social
data GIS software scatter plot to demonstrate causal
connections
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Failures of scientific communication Challenger disaster air crash in Columbia (navigation
software which gave same label to two beacons)
software failure: implementation of US design standards into CAD software for industrial buildings
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The cholera case
The difficulty of analysis: what variables are significant?
spatial analysis importance of scale of analysis
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What standards should govern scientific graphics? accuracy of content easy to read analytical insight--reveal previously
unidentified patterns easy to make appropriate inferences easy to read scale, data limitations Inference and communication --
separate functions
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Tufte’s principles of graphical excellence well-designed presentation of
interesting data complex ideas communicated with
clarity, precision, and efficiency gives to the viewer the greatest number
of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space
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Tufte’s principles (cont.)
nearly always multivariate tell the truth about the data do not quote data out of context (74)
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Chart junk
excessive ink “cute” elements unnecessary data labels
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The Bad View
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The Good View