Truth, beauty, and data

# Truth, beauty, and data

**Session 1**

]

---

# Plan for today

.box-2.medium.sp-after-half[Facts, truth, and beauty]

.box-3.medium.sp-after-half[Data, truth, and beauty]

.box-6.medium.sp-after-half[Beautiful visualizations]

.box-7.medium[Class details]

---

layout: false
name: facts-truth-beauty
class: center middle section-title section-title-2 animated fadeIn

# Facts, truth, and beauty

---

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# What is truth?

.box-inv-2.medium[Core principles of the universe?]

.box-inv-2.medium[Underlying trends in society?]

.box-inv-2.medium[Something transcendental?]

.box-inv-2.medium[Reality?]

---

# How do we find truth?

.box-inv-2.medium[Science!]

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/ndgt-scientism.png" alt="Neil deGrasse Tyson on science" title="Neil deGrasse Tyson on science" width="70%">
</figure>
]

???

[Original tweet](https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/345551599382446081)

---

# But wait!

.box-inv-2.medium.sp-after[Beware of scientism!]

.box-2["… promotion of science as the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values"]

???

[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism)

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# Science is not the only way

.box-inv-2.medium[Art]

.box-inv-2.medium[Music]

.box-inv-2.medium[Literature]

.box-inv-2.medium[Religion]

.box-inv-2.medium[Nature]

???

None of these methods deal with raw facts, though!

---

# Nothing here is factual…

.pull-left[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/les-mis.jpg" alt="ZZZ" title="ZZZ" width="100%">
 <figcaption>Cosette</figcaption>
</figure>
]

.pull-right[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/King_Lear.jpg" alt="King Lear" title="King Lear" width="100%">
 <figcaption>King Lear</figcaption>
</figure>
]

]

.pull-right[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/beethoven.png" alt="ZZZ" title="ZZZ" width="100%">
 <figcaption>Beethoven's 9th symphony</figcaption>
</figure>
]

???

Sources:

- [Cosette](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cosette-sweeping-les-miserables-albert-bellenger-1886.jpg)
- [King Lear](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:King_Lear.jpg)
- [Beethoven](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beethoven,_Symphony_No._9,_finale,_bars_116-123.png)

---

.box-2.huge[Facts ≠ truth]

---

.box-2.large.sp-after[Where does truth come when there are no facts?]

.box-inv-2.huge[Beauty]

---

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# Beauty in science

.pull-left.center[

]

.box-inv-2.medium[This is also true for science and math and other more factual realms]

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# Rhetoric and beauty

.box-inv-2.tiny.sp-after[Logos&emsp;•&emsp;Lexis]

.box-inv-2.sp-after[Content&emsp;•&emsp;Form]

.box-2.medium[Truth&emsp;•&emsp;Beauty]

???

One is the underlying metaphysical meaning—what the author or artist intends. The other is *how* they convey that message—what it looks like, what they used, etc.

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# Content + form

.box-inv-2.large[Art is how we translate core, essential **content** (or truth!) to different **forms** for specific **audiences**.]

---

# Truth is beautiful

.box-inv-2.medium[Truth ≠ facts]

.box-inv-2.medium.sp-after[Truth comes from aesthetic combination of content and form]

.box-2.medium[Facts require beauty to be true]

---

layout: false
name: data-truth-beauty
class: center middle section-title section-title-3 animated fadeIn

# Data, truth, and beauty

---

---

# Just show me the data!

.pull-left-3.small-code[

```r
head(my_data, 10)
```

```
## # A tibble: 10 × 2
## x y
## <dbl> <dbl>
## 1 55.4 97.2
## 2 51.5 96.0
## 3 46.2 94.5
## 4 42.8 91.4
## 5 40.8 88.3
## 6 38.7 84.9
## 7 35.6 79.9
## 8 33.1 77.6
## 9 29.0 74.5
## 10 26.2 71.4
```
]

.pull-middle-3.small-code[

```r
mean(my_data$x)
```

```
*## [1] 54.26327
```

```r
mean(my_data$y)
```

```
*## [1] 47.83225
```

```r
cor(my_data$x, my_data$y)
```

```
*## [1] -0.06447185
```
]

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

---

# oh no

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/DinoSequentialSmaller.gif" alt="Datasaurus Dozen" title="Datasaurus Dozen" width="100%">
 <figcaption><a href="https://www.autodeskresearch.com/publications/samestats" target="_blank">The Datasaurus Dozen</a></figcaption>
</figure>
]

---

# Raw data is not enough

.box-inv-3.small[Each of these has the same mean, standard deviation, variance, and correlation]

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# Humans love patterns

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/pattern-processing.png" alt="Pattern processing" title="Pattern processing" width="100%">
 <figcaption><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00265" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00265</a></figcaption>
</figure>
]

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# (Sometimes we love them too much)

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# Beauty is necessary to see patterns

]

.pull-right.center[

]

---

layout: false
name: beautiful-visualizations
class: center middle section-title section-title-6 animated fadeIn

# Beautiful visualizations

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# What makes a great visualization?

.box-inv-6.medium[Truthful]

.box-inv-6.medium[Functional]

.box-inv-6.medium[Beautiful]

.box-inv-6.medium[Insightful]

.box-inv-6.medium[Enlightening]

.box-6.tiny[Alberto Cairo, *The Truthful Art*]

???

Alberto Cairo, *The Truthful Art*:

> 1. It is truthful, as it’s based on thorough and honest research.
> 
> 2. It is functional, as it constitutes an accurate depiction of the data, and it’s built in a way that lets people do meaningful operations based on it (seeing change in time).
> 
> 3. It is beautiful, in the sense of being attractive, intriguing, and even aesthetically pleasing for its intended audience—scientists, in the first place, but the general public, too.
> 
> 4. It is insightful, as it reveals evidence that we would have a hard time seeing otherwise.
> 
> 5. It is enlightening because if we grasp and accept the evidence it depicts, it will change our minds for the better.

---

# What makes a great visualization?

.box-inv-6["Graphical excellence is the **well-designed presentation of interesting data**—a matter of substance, of statistics, and of design … [It] consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency. … [It] is that which **gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space** … [It] is nearly always multivariate … And graphical excellence requires **telling the truth about the data**."]

.box-6.tiny[Edward Tufte, *The Visual Display of Quantitative Information*, p. 51]

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# What makes a great visualization?

.box-inv-6.medium[Good aesthetics]

.box-inv-6.medium[No substantive issues]

.box-inv-6.medium[No perceptual issues]

.box-inv-6.medium[Honesty + good judgment]

.box-6.tiny[Kieran Healy, *Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction*]

---

# What's wrong?

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/pie-genus.png" alt="Distribution of genus" title="Distribution of genus" width="60%">
</figure>
]

???

- Aesthetic issues
- Substantive issues
- Perceptual issues
- Honesty + judgment issues

---

# What's wrong?

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/changing-face-of-america.png" alt="Changing face of America" title="Changing face of America" width="45%">
</figure>
]

???

- Aesthetic issues
- Substantive issues
- Perceptual issues
- Honesty + judgment issues

---

# What's wrong?

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/how-stuff-works-recidivism.png" alt="Recidivism pie chart" title="Recidivism pie chart" width="45%">
</figure>
]

???

- Aesthetic issues
- Substantive issues
- Perceptual issues
- Honesty + judgment issues

---

# What's right?

]

???

- Aesthetic issues
- Substantive issues
- Perceptual issues
- Honesty + judgment issues

.pull-right.center[

<figure>
 <img src="img/01/bergstrom-tweet.png" alt="Carl Bergstrom tweet" title="Carl Bergstrom tweet" width="80%">
 <figcaption><a href="https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1235865328074153986" target="_blank">Thread by Carl T. Bergstrom</a></figcaption>
</figure>

]

???

[Carl Bergstrom on the flatten the curve visualization](https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1235865328074153986)

---

layout: false
name: class-details
class: center middle section-title section-title-7 animated fadeIn

# Class details

---

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# Goal for the class

.center[
.box-inv-7.huge[Recognize and create beautiful and truthful visualizations with real world data]
]

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# Plan for the class

&nbsp;

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/dataviz-flowchart.png" alt="Class flowchart" title="Class flowchart" width="100%">
</figure>
]

---

# Class technology

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/complexity-chart@4x.png" alt="Complexity chart" title="Complexity chart" width="65%">
</figure>
]

---

# Class technology

.pull-left-3.center[

]

]

&nbsp;

]

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# The tidyverse

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/tidyverse.png" alt="The tidyverse" title="The tidyverse" width="50%">
</figure>
]

---

# Sucking

.center[
.box-inv-7.medium[“There is no way of knowing nothing about a subject to knowing something about a subject without going through a period of much frustration and suckiness.”]

.box-inv-7.medium[**“Push through. You’ll suck less.”**]

.box-inv-7.tiny[Hadley Wickham, author of **ggplot2**]
]

???

[Source for quote](https://twitter.com/Akbaritabar/status/1022057084802748416)

---

# Sucking

&nbsp;

.pull-left[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/sucking-first-step.jpg" alt="Sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something" title="Sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something" width="100%">
</figure>
]

.pull-right[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/sucking-nyt.png" alt="It's great to suck at something" title="It's great to suck at something" width="100%">
 <figcaption><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/its-great-to-suck-at-surfing.html" target="_blank">Karen Rinaldi, "(It's Great to) Suck at Something"</a></figcaption>
</figure>
]