1: Why visualize data?

# Why visualize data?

.class-info.medium[
**Part 1**

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&nbsp;
]

---

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)

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# 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!

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# Nothing here is factual…

.pull-left[
<figure>
 <img src="img/01/les-mis.jpg" alt="Cosette" title="Cosette" width="100%">
 <figcaption>Cosette from Les Misérables</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="Beethoven's 9th" title="Beethoven's 9th" 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)

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.box-2.huge[Facts ≠ truth]

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

.box-inv-2.huge[Beauty]

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# Rhetoric and beauty

.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**.]

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# 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]

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

# Data and beauty

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# Just show me the data!

.pull-left-3.small-code[

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

```
## # A tibble: 10 x 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
```
]

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# 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>
]

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# 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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# Beauty is necessary to see patterns

]

.pull-right.center[

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.box-3.large[Beauty is necessary for truth]