GRAPHS AS POETRY
C.J. Minard, W.E.B. Du Bois and the Great Migration
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - 6-8pm
East Pyne Room 010, Princeton University campus
Wine & Cheese Reception at 6:00pm - Lecture at 6:30pm
Admission is free
Questions & pregistration: Lydia at activities@princetonaaa.org
Visual displays of empirical information are too often thought to be just compact summaries that, at their best, can clarify a muddled situation. This is partially true, as far as it goes, but it omits the magic. We have long known that data visualization is an alchemist that can make good scientists great and transform great scientists into giants. In this talk we will see that sometimes, albeit too rarely, the combination of critical questions addressed by important data and illuminated by evocative displays can achieve a transcendent, and often wholly unexpected, result. At their best, visualizations can communicate emotions and feelings in addition to cold, hard facts.
Howard Wainer *68 P07, was on the faculty of The University of Chicago until 1977, was in Washington during the Carter administration; was Principal Research Scientist at the Educational Testing Service from 1980 until 2001; was Distinguished Research Scientist at the National Board of Medical Examiners and Professor of Statistics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 2001 until 2016. He is now in his post-employment career as statistician and author.
Dr. Wainer has been the recipient of many honors, among them:
- The E. F. Lindquist Award for Outstanding Research in Testing & Measurement,
- The Psychometric Society Lifetime Achievement Award,
- The Samuel J. Messick Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the American Psychological Association, and The Career Achievement Award from The National Council on Measurement and Evaluation.
He has published over 450 articles and chapters and 23 books. His most recent book is Truth or Truthiness: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction by Learning to Think like a Data Scientist, which was published by Cambridge University Press and was named “top 6 books of 2016” by the Financial Times of London.
He is currently writing a history of statistical graphics in collaboration with Michael Friendly *71. It is tentatively entitled On The Origin of Graphic Species, and will be published by Harvard University Press.
Flow maps of the Great Migration: Figurative maps showing the flows of non-white migrants in America, 1880–1940, using a design inspired by C.J. Minard