Blast from the past: a 1974 data treatise by Edward Tufte

Back in 1974, Yale poli-sci professor Edward Tufte published a slim volume called Data Analysis for Politics and Policy (Prentice-Hall, $3.95). The book in its entirety is available for free download (PDFs) at Tufte's website, accompanied by a contemporary review from the Journal of the American Statistical Association. More than 30 years later, the review amuses me with its restrained praise of the perspective that would eventually make Tufte a Major Figure (and a minor fortune):

Tufte puts residual plots to good use to gain understanding of a data set, and he shows how finding outliers gives the analyst hints about the inadequacy of a statistical model... The discussion of graphical techniques in general is quite good... A brief but compelling discussion of the "value of data as evidence," with regard to the interpretation of nonrandom samples, is presented.

If you happen to have a spare 48MB lying about, DAPP's worth a download.

[via Sofa Papa]

Comments

I want to be Jorge Camoes when I grow up.

Portuguese infoviz enthusiast Jorge Camoes has spent the last year and a half writing informed, insightful blog posts on the field, complete with examples and citations. To his credit, he approaches everything -- even the revered work of Edward Tufte and Stephen Few -- with loving skepticism. I'm gratified, too, that he seems to agree with me on one central point: Snazzy tools alone don't get you good data visualization. It all comes down to putting serious thought into the project before you plot the first data point. In future posts we'll discuss more of Jorge's ideas. Bem feito, o Sr. Camoes!

Everybody loves visual information — especially Abraham Lincoln.

Infographics are clearly having a cultural moment. They have become pervasive in newspapers, magazines, blog posts, and viral tweets; they appear on television and in advertising, in political campaigns and at art openings. As a Google search term, “infographic” has increased nearly twenty-fold in the last five years. Yet infographics have been popular, in one form or another, for centuries. The source of their power isn’t computers or the Internet, but the brain’s natural visual intelligence. Gareth Cook , the editor of Best American Infographics 2013 , has put together a short but true summary of the history of information graphics. (Many of you who see this blog may know most of it already.) His striking lede recounts how much Abraham Lincoln valued his "slave map," shown above. Lincoln's reliance on the shades of gray throughout the Confederacy made an enormous difference in his Civil War decision-making. Fortunately it's rare that most people have to make l

Hype and backlash:
visualizing pop culture trends

Back in 2005, the astute pop-culture chronicler Adam Sternbergh pointed out that a person's opinion of any given entertainment product depends largely on how long they've been aware of it — that is, where the product sits on the sine-wave timeline of public expectations (aka buzz). His findings, in chart form: "Welcome to the undulating curve of shifting expectations—the Heisenbergian principle by which hype determines how much you enjoy a given pop-culture phenomenon. The first-wave audience is pleasantly surprised, but the second-wavers feel let down; then the third wave finds it’s not as bad as they’ve heard—and they’re all watching the exact same show." Almost five years later, this pattern describes just about all our collective experiences. Sports fans, how much sweeter was it to watch the New Orleans Saints come out of nowhere to win the NFC championship than to have seen the Minnesota Vikings do it for the umpteenth time? As for politics, consider the poll

I See What You Mean

Search This Blog