Florence Nightingale, Statistical Graphics Pioneer 204
Science News has a fascinating look at an under-appreciated corner of the career of Florence Nightingale — as an innovator in the use of statistical graphics to argue for social change. Nightingale returned from the Crimean War a heroine in the eyes of the British citizenry, for the soldiers' lives she had saved. But she came to appreciate that the way to save far more lives was to reform attitudes in the military about sanitation. Under the tutelage of William Farr, who had just invented the field of medical statistics, she compiled overwhelming evidence (in the form of an 830-page report) of the need for change. "As impressive as her statistics were, Nightingale worried that Queen Victoria's eyes would glaze over as she scanned the tables. So Nightingale devised clever ways of presenting the information in charts. Statistics had been presented using graphics only a few times previously, and perhaps never to persuade people of the need for social change."
oh god (Score:5, Informative)
Better graph (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right (Score:5, Informative)
While I completely agree that she was not given the prestiege due her while she was alive, I think you underestimate her fame in the time since. There have been [wikipedia.org] monuments erected in her honour, museums named after her, and books, television shows, and no fewer than 4 films about her, and I think she could reasonably accurate be described as a household name today (who hasn't at least heard the name?). Most of them concentrate on her contribution to our understanding of sanitation (in which she was truly revolutionary) and nursing, but I do not think that she could reasonably be described as lacking in recognition in the modern era.
Prior art in the Economist (Score:2, Informative)
It appears they are finaly getting around to last years issues.
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278643 [economist.com]
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Dr. John Snow (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better graph (Score:4, Informative)
You could have read the page the post you're replying to links to:
You and I are shown graphs every day. Some are honest; many are misleading. Nightingale could, for example, have scaled deaths according to the radius, instead of the area, of the segments. That would've strengthened her case. But it would've misled people, since area is what the eye sees.
Re:oh god (Score:3, Informative)
The sad thing is that it is spelled correctly twice in the quote from the article. An other sad thing is that the misspelling has been on slashdot for over 8hs, and you posted about it within 2 minutes. You would assume that the kdawson would at least check the chatter of the articles a bit and correct the typos since he posted 3 more stories in the hours after this one.
Tufte discussion of Nightingale charts (Score:2, Informative)