Skip to the page
Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas

Charts

Chart Literacy

Famous and misleading charts redrawn from public data next to an honest version of the same numbers, from rates that flip when groups merge to hidden shapes.

Postcard view of the Greek Theatre at the University of California, 1905: a packed semicircle of seated spectators in hats faces a stage with a columned wall, trees behind. Red printed title below the photograph.

Simpson's Paradox: One Berkeley Table, Two Honest Summaries

Picture credit

"Greek Theatre, University of California" by Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:06849-Kalifornien-1905-Greek_Theatre,_University_of_California-Br%C3%BCck_%26_Sohn_Kunstverlag.jpg — CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Tinted lithograph of a long hospital ward at Scutari: beds along a plank floor at right, a stove and pipe in the centre, cupboards of bottles at left, a woman in a dark dress and an officer reading papers, patients sitting and lying.

Nightingale Rose Diagram: Its Monthly Rates Are Yearly Rates

Picture credit

"One of the wards in the hospital at Scutari" by William Simpson (artist) and E. Walker (lithographer) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27One_of_the_wards_in_the_hospital_at_Scutari%27._Wellcome_M0007724.jpg — CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Illustration: four men walk in single file toward a narrow river along the edge of a trodden track worn far wider than four walkers could make.

Minard's Map: By His Figures, Most Losses Came Before Winter

Picture credit

Illustration: Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas. Generated schematic illustration — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas holds rights in it.

Illustration: four men stand in a row, heads bowed, each holding an identical straight rod at the same angle above a pile of pebbles laid out differently: a scatter, an arch, a row with one stray, and a column with one apart.

Anscombe's Quartet: One Fitted Line, Four Different Shapes

Picture credit

Illustration: Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas. Generated schematic illustration — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas holds rights in it.