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0 pointsmikeash7y ago0 comments

Take a look at this friendly graph of carbon-14 concentration in the atmosphere since 1955 for just one example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14#/media/File%3ARadi...

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avian7y ago

Just note that this friendly graph employs the bad practice of not having the vertical axis origin at 0, which visually exaggerates the change.

jackpirate7y ago

I disagree. It's a multiplicative factor vertically centered to 1. Seems better to me than if it had been aligned to 0.

pqhwan7y ago

Not necessarily a bad practice. Most of the graphs I've seen use this technique, do so to make the changes in value visible, not to deceive the viewer.

mikeashOP7y ago

If the change is invisible on a 0-based graph, maybe the change isn’t so important....

This one only exaggerates things by a factor of 2, at least.

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barrkel7y ago

That's just it: if the changes are only visible if you chop off the bottom of the graph, the probability they aren't significant increases.

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