more on NYTimes, CAIB, Tufte: PowerPoint Makes You Dumb

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:23:53 -0500
From: Matt Blaze <mab () crypto com>
Subject: Re: [IP] NYTimes, CAIB, Tufte: PowerPoint Makes You Dumb
To: dave () farber net

As quoted on IP, Clive Thompson writes in the NY Times Magazine (12/14/03):
> Charts in newspapers like The Wall Street
> Journal contain up to 120 elements on average, allowing readers to
> compare large groupings of data.

Huh?  Which is it, up to 120 elements or 120 elements on average?  (Or
perhaps we are to conclude that such charts always contain exactly 120
elements, which is about the only way this sentence makes sense.)

It's bad enough that we frequently have to guess whether "average"
refers to mean, median or mode.  But confusing any measure of average
with the *maximum* really has me scratching my head here.  (I won't
even ask whether "up to" was intended inclusively or exclusively.)

Muddling such basic quantitative language in an article reporting the
work of someone as committed to fighting innumeracy as Edward Tufte
seems especially ironic, but perhaps he can take comfort in the
knowledge that the Times has provided him fresh material for a future
book.

-matt

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