After watching the two videos (The Beauty of Data Visualization and How Statisti
ID: 3042952 • Letter: A
Question
After watching the two videos (The Beauty of Data Visualization and How Statistics Can be Misleading), what is your perspective of statistical data? How can we truly believe all the statistical data out there? Is it safe to believe visual data? Why or why not? What does David McCandless refer to "data" as? What does he mean by that? How can you make sure the data you collect is valid?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zg-C8AAIGg
David McCandless introduces unique ways to demonstrate data. Watch this video and "How Statistics Can be Misleading" (below) to help you answer the Discussion Board assignment. From TED.
How Statistics Can be Misleading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxYrzzy3cq8
In this video from Ted-Ed, you will learn that even though statistics can look bad or good, we need to make sure there are no lurking variables.
Explanation / Answer
Statistical data is the data that is gathered over a period of time showing some trends in it
We cannot believe all the statistical data out there because of lurking variables which when taken into account completely changes the view point.
We cannot immediately find out the lurking variables but we have to be careful and try to understand the various data points from different angle to try and comprehend the data in a more focused manner so as to see the complete picture
It is safe to believe visual data as the data is arranged not just as a bunch of numbers but as a picture which can immediately show patterns and significance of the diffrent data points in the entire data
If we see only some random numbers without diffrent point of views we cannot come to the right conclusions
David refers to data a fertile soil from which we can harvest a lot of trends and other patterns by doing the right data cleaning and mining.
The validity of the data can be checked by taking the data from the right sources. For example data from some random websites cannot be taken at the face value but instead trusted sources like government websites and other websites which have stood the test of time in delivering accurate information can be relied upon as valid data