-
Skepticism
The Return of Bad Chart Thursday
I should probably title this “The Return of the Return of Bad Chart Thursday: This Time I Really Mean It,” because I’ve struggled to write this column as often as I’d like—ideally, every Thursday, but now that Trump has ushered in an era when reality is often indistinguishable from satire, getting a post up once a month would be a…
Read More » -
Politics
Bad Chart Thursday: Border Patrol Pads Assault Data to Falsely Claim Down Is Up
Assaults on Border Patrol agents have been decreasing for years, but as Debbie Nathan of the Intercept reported earlier this week, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in fiscal year 2015, started quietly padding the data enough to make a downward trend look like an increase. Rather than assault numbers reflecting the number of incidents or officers assaulted, CBP multiplies…
Read More » -
Politics
Bad Chart Thursday: DeVos’s Pyramid Scheme for Education
US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appeared on 60 Minutes earlier this month, in part to plug her latest pyramid scheme: for-profit school choice. Yet DeVos couldn’t answer basic questions from host Leslie Stahl about how school choice was working for students in Michigan, DeVos’s home state, where she’s successfully lobbied for decades to implement for-profit charter schools with little to…
Read More » -
Politics
Bad Chart Thursday: Crime-Fighting Border Walls Cause Cancer
The justification for the border wall that Donald Trump wants to build at the US-Mexico border is that the wall would reduce crime. Though it’s well established that the immigrant crime rate is much lower than that of native-born Americans, and evidence suggests that immigrant-friendly cities tend to experience a lower crime rate than other urban areas, Trump and his…
Read More » -
Skepticism
Bad Chart Thursday: The Unbearable Whiteness of Being a Trump Voter
Did you know that people of color are responsible for electing Trump? It’s true . . . if you lump people of color with white women. Just as falling out of chairs is a leading cause of death in the U.S. when grouped with cancer. Beanbags should clearly be mandatory. This blatantly misleading logic is the conclusion of yet another…
Read More » -
Politics
Bad Chart Thursday: From 0 to Pot Pie in 5 Charts
I had so many terrible charts to choose from this week that it seemed a shame not to share them all, so here’s a quick rundown of my favorite data visualization fails this month, starting with the least egregious and working toward the worst chart ever to grace this site’s pixels. First up are a couple of charts that aren’t…
Read More » -
Featured
Rep. Steve King: Proud White Supremacist
On Sunday, US Congressman Steve King (R-IA) retweeted the anti-immigrant fake news account Voice of Europe, adding his own white supremacist take on the original tweet: @SteveKingIA: “Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” @V_of_Europe: “Hundreds of Islamists shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Wilders is right for…
Read More » -
Featured
Bad Chart Thursday: Pseudoscientific Chart Judges Science Reporting
A chart purporting to rank credible science journalism uses the most unscientific means ever: opinion presented as fact. Editors for the American Council of Science and Health (ACSH), an industry-funded “science” site, and Real Clear Science (RCS), a news aggregator with some original material, co-created and published a chart using a design aesthetic beloved by marketers of online pyramid schemes…
Read More »
