Forum Archive Index - June 2002

["John Wedde" <John.Wedde@weltec.ac.nz>]

Hi Brian,

I was really only talking about the VISUAL message conveyed by the
chart, or any chart for that matter. People should be really careful to
check scales closely to avoid being mislead. 

Your question on the % fall from the "top" to "bottom" from my
approximate calculations give the following results:
1929/30  93% [from 590 to 40]
1987       35% [from 2,600 to 1700]

The % drop in 1929 / 30 is roughly 2 1/2 times that of 1987.

However, VISUALLY, on the chart I printed at least, the drop in 1929 /
30 is 40 mm, in 1987 only 7mm. In other words VISUALLY the drop in
1929 /30 APPEARS to be 6 times that of 1987! 

I'm a fundamentalist who uses charts in a very basic fashion. They
certainly show trends and I consider them very useful. I'm a big
Phaedrus fan, but maths ain't my thing.  Communication is. The chart we
are discussing can be very misleading!

Be wary ---- lies, dam lies and statistics

Cheers,
John

ps. Of course a chart that would show more precisely what happened over
this rather long period would be too large to be manageable, and
certainly would not fit on any normal computer screen.  

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