From the UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA and the “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.” department comes this laughable attempt to boost the image of climate science via making graphs “accessible to non-experts”. Yes, it’s the old canard “if only we could just make people understand it the way we do, they’d get behind it”. If they need a graph to make ‘accessible to non-experts’ they should start with “Mike’s Nature Trick“. They should make this required reading: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics … and Graphs
New guidelines aim to improve understanding of scientific data
Drawing on cognitive and psychological sciences and using climate change data as an example, the team looked at how scientists and other communicators can increase the accessibility of graphics used to present information, while maintaining scientific accuracy and rigor.
Scientific information is one factor that can influence decision-making to achieve change, and visualisation of data through graphics – such as graphs, diagrams and thematic maps – plays an important role in the communication of climate change findings to both expert and non-specialist audiences.
However, graphics created for scientific assessments published by bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been criticised for being inaccessible to non-experts.
The researchers from UEA and Temple University provide guidelines to support climate scientists in developing more accessible graphics. They show how they can be applied in practice and provide recommendations on how the IPCC might use these guidelines in the development of future reports.
The project was conducted in response to the IPCC itself asking how graphics and reports can be made more user-friendly as it looks ahead to the Sixth Assessment Report, due to be released in 2020-2021.
Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers suggest that graphics should be tested during their development to understand viewers’ comprehension of them, for example by using eye tracking technology to measure visual attention.
Co-author Prof Kenny Coventry, an expert in the relationship between language and perception and head of UEA’s School of Psychology, said the cognitive and psychological sciences can provide valuable insights into how visualisations of data can be improved.
“Graphics of climate data are integral to scientific assessments of climate change, but only support communication and decision-making if they are understood,” said Prof Coventry.
“Testing graphics and applying insights from the science of human cognition to help overcome comprehension problems offers the potential to make climate science knowledge more accessible to decision-makers in society, while also retaining the integrity of the scientific data and evidence on which they are based.
“The ease of accessibility of graphics of climate science has implications for how society might make best use of scientific knowledge. Graphics of climate data that are accessible to all parties involved could support improved engagement, dialogue and decision-making between scientists, policy-makers, practitioners, communities and the public.
“While the science underpinning graphic comprehension is still developing, the guidelines we present provide a useful reference for climate scientists to apply psychological and cognitive insights when creating graphics of data.”
The researchers say that visual attention when viewing graphics can be limited and selective – visual information in a graphic may or may not be looked at and/or processed by viewers. An excess of visual information can also create visual clutter and impair comprehension, while the visual structure and layout of the data influences the conclusions drawn about it.
Animating a graphic may help or hinder comprehension, and the language used can influence thought about the graphic.
The team used the guidelines to re-design a figure from one of the IPCC’s Summaries for Policy Makers (SPMs), which are primarily aimed at experts working in government. This cognitively inspired version included larger font size to highlight key headings, emphasised important differences using contrast in colour, and reduced visual clutter. When tested with a sample of climate change researchers and non-experts, 80 per cent of them preferred the cognitively inspired version.
The guidelines include:
- Direct viewers’ visual attention to visual features of the graphic that support inferences about the data;
- Include only information for the intended purpose of the graphic; break down the graphic into visual ‘chunks’, each of which should contain enough information for the intended task or message;
- Identify the most important relationships in the data that are to be communicated; consider different ways of structuring the data that enable the viewer to quickly identify these relationships;
- Use text to help direct viewers’ understanding of the graphic, for example by providing key knowledge needed to interpret the graphic.
Jordan Harold, co-author and PhD researcher within UEA’s School of Psychology and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said: “Visually representing climate data to inform decision-making can be challenging due to the multi-dimensionality of data, a diversity in users’ needs across different stakeholder groups, and challenges and limitations in the use of software and tools to create graphics.
“As the IPCC prepares for its Sixth Assessment Report, there is an opportunity for it to open up the review process and ask the psychology and cognitive science communities, and those working in associated disciplines, for feedback on drafts of graphics. Similar collaborations have led to improved communication in related scientific fields.”
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‘Cognitive and psychological science insights to improve climate change data visualisation’, authored by Jordan Harold, Irene Lorenzoni, Thomas Shipley and Kenny Coventry is published in Nature Climate Change.
Dataganda is what you get when the end is presumed to justify the means.
If you torture the data enough, eventually it will tell you anything you want to know.
I’m still scratching my head as to why multi-line graphs ever use color to identify the various lines.
Apparently it never occurred to these “cognitive experts” that lots of people are color-blind.
A graph can present a line of data, but the why of that line’s path can be due to many, many things. Graphs can mislead very easily, so I have no idea why these people think that a single line
contains much in the way of information. And the data represented by a graph can be just as selective as any other method of presentation – remember Michael Mann’s ridiculously inaccurate hockey stick? Using that as an example, one might say that graphs are one of the worst possible ways to convey information.
Particularly if some lame brain simply connects the actual sampled data points with straight lines, thus converting what might be a perfectly good data set, into a non band limited continuous function so that even an infinite number of data points would be under-sampled, and hence heavily aliased.
Why don’t the teach theory of sampled data systems in climate “science” courses.
G
If truth were the goal, they would.
Graphs, colored ones, apparently worked on Michael Mann. It’s how he knew how serious this whole thing was. So if a super-smart guy could be convinced by a graph (interesting the data had so little effect—maybe numbers and figuring aren’t really his thing), so can everyone else, right?*
(*This sentence is sarc)
Include only information for the intended purpose of the graphic;
Excellent, let’s reduce science to advertising! This is exactly what got them in trouble in the first place. People looking at representations of the data that failed to stand up to scrutiny. The people who can be fooled by this have already been fooled. The people who can’t will simply be fed an endless supply of new ammunition with which to expose the charade.
The principle is ‘do not create your own distraction.’ Focus the graphic on what you intend to communicate.
That is why Greg only shows the arctic ice coverage, and hides the antarctic ice coverage where in 2014 set the record highest ice coverage and ice volume in recorded history.
It is not what they show us, it is what they hide from us.
There biggest problem is they are selling a product, and people universally buy based on emotions not logic. Right now they are losing the emotive advantage because the people who have bought into the past message are either onboard or they have left “the fold”. Now they have to find a message that resonates, but as the Democrats found out this last election, it’s hard to get people to buy into your position, when you’ve made a career of hurling prejoratives at them.
“Study: Let’s dumb down climate science by making our tortured and warped data ‘accessible to non-experts’”
Would that be the raw data or the data tortured into submission?
Neither. It’s the special, made-up data that shows the warming they want us to buy into.
There was a time, where I live, to get business people to advise arts organizations. What they found was that the arts organizations were already sufficiently sophisticated.
I strongly suspect that these cognitive scientists have little to offer to the climate scientists. Anyone who has taught a first year science, engineering, or math course is probably already pretty good at communicating with the unsophisticated. 🙂
The objective is to excite the masses so they’ll force the government to act.
No sophistication of the truth needed.
Exactly so. When it suits their purposes, our congress critters will use public pressure as an excuse to push through legislation. On the other hand, most of the time, congress literally doesn’t care what the people think. link
“Remember class, and this is crucial, adjust, homogenize, normalize the meticulously recorded temperature histories BEFORE you convert them to a graph.”
Their guidelines are for advertising not communicating or educating.
Bingo!
No make it accessible for our intelligent politicians.
https://youtu.be/cesSRfXqS1Q
or
https://youtu.be/QV7dDSgbaQ0
I don’t have a link to it, but at what point a daring reporter asked Pelosi for the section of the constitution that supported ObamaCare. She just looked down her nose at the reporter, snorted “really”. Then moved on to the next question.
The most interesting part is the extent to which the psychology academy has moved into the climate science space. I realize the monetary lure was out there and the publishing opportunities were wide open to them.
Captain, I cannae dumb her down any further!
For me it was observing the many graphs along with reading related material which convinced me that CO2 was not a primary driver.
But now, they’ll control what graphs and reading material you may look at.
Remember, they’re going to get rid of fake news.
They didn’t say how they’d decide which news was fake, though I’m sure they can tell.
I have a nice library of graphs saved from the last 8 years of reading. That means I also have the correct picture in my mind, in my opinion.
This is something a bit old. The two Scientists were early researchers into climate change. Namely what caused ice ages.
Their theory is based upon natural variation, no CO2 required. You can make what you will of it, but take a careful look at their methodology. They seek out experts in other field and recognize the problem that science is compartmentalized. Oh and yes their theory was/is controversial, but it underwent real peer review rather than pal review.
With the current interest in the arctic this Autumn I feel it is worth reading over to see exactly how unsettled the science really is
There are some who post here convinced of the validity of CAGW who I think would benefit from the knowledge that there were explanation and predictions to all that is believed to be transpiring today. Which recognized that it was all part or natural cycles
So if you have never read the following link enjoy
http://harpers.org/archive/1958/09/the-coming-ice-age/8/
michael
I’m not really sure one should call data presented in an easily understood manner “dumbing-down”. It’s one thing to present your data as columns of numbers. But it’s entirely something different when you can present your data as graphics that can be understood by your audience, and they can come up with cogent comments and questions about the data.
Now if you’re simply trying to hide the data that don’t match your preconceived notions with flashy, distracting animations, then you’re cheating and that’s not acceptable.
Well we all know that that’d be a first in climate science.
Maybe they should consider using the J. Goebbels and Associates advertising agency?
I suggest that the simplest way for UEA to achieve its graph aims is to use the same people who “draw” tourist maps, where all the sights are amazingly close and the local area buzzing with excitement. I always just get a normal map.
The low class climate liars and rent seekers posing as academics are disgusting.
There is only one answer that needs to be thrown their way.
Because I paid for you to do that research pencil dick. It belongs to me, not you. You’re just my public servant doing it.
I’m with you David.
Well said.
“Drawing on cognitive and psychological sciences and using climate change data as an example, the team looked at how scientists and other communicators can increase the accessibility of graphics used to present information..”
For climate science I suggest they use crayons.
Well when leftists began their long march through our sandstones and institutions of integrity and threw open the doors to progressively weaker minds, dumbing them down in the name of equality for all, this is the inevitable outcome.
Climate “science” is already dumbed down … and not science — just climate astrology !
Wild guess predictions of the future climate.
Just personal opinions disguised as “complex climate models”.
No progress in understanding effects of CO2 since 1896.
In fact, climate “science” is going backwards.
The future climate is claimed to be known with precision (runaway warming).
But historical climate data are “so bad” they have to be repeatedly “adjusted”.
The climate in 2016 is the best it has been in 500 or more years.
Normal people are happy – not as cold in the middle of the night..
Animals are happy, even polar bears – not as cold in the middle of the night & Earth is greening too.
Green plants are happy – from more CO2.
Only leftists are miserable.
They’re always miserable.
They can’t even appreciate the wonderful climate we have today.
PS: I have asked Mr. Trump to lock up the climate scaremongers for a year so normal people like us can enjoy the wonderful climate in 2017 — if they are locked up they will leave us alone … until 2018 when they start predicting a coming global cooling catastrophe (like some did in 1975) ! We need a new boogeyman!
Failure to reveal all the movements in temperature and ice by restricting graphical presentation is a well traveled road.
As an undergraduate we were advised never to bring in a whole file of material for cross examination in a court.
Only bring in loose leaf and hand over only the pages asked for.
Otherwise that barrister would ask difficult questions of previous results.
The problem is not the medium or cognition, its the message.
Attempts to manipulate this message must be defunded and science left to honest debate with publicly accessible raw data.
The dominant required improvement is the calculation and presentation of error envelopes on graphs. Not just statistical ‘precision’ type estimates as commonly done but most importantly, inclusion of ‘bias’ or ‘accuracy’ estimates.
In an ideal world, error limits are supposed to convey important, even critical information. In many cases, they are a token effort and they mislead, not inform.
There is well-developed formalism for the estimation and measurement of error and its propagation. It should be mandatory to use the full, formal calculations.
Geoff
These guidelines for improved graphs remind me of what advertising and marketing professionals do to sell products.
But I guess, when the product for sale is AGW catastrophism, trickery and deception are fine.
Flavio Capelli Exactly, show me the data, graphs just get in the way, to the most part I see graphs as something simpletons need to see, to see what the trends are, I can see that in the data without the graph. If you show me the completed data I can see the trends you don’t want me to see.