Covid-19 reminded us of just how high the the stakes can be. These graphs push and pull us into taking high-stakes decisions. It covers Nightingale’s use of data visualization, the deception of the rose diagram, and what it all means for data visualization today.Īs Harford says, “ not just decorations. I strongly recommend you listen to Tim Harford’s excellent podcast episode for more details. “By the time the sanitary commission arrived,” Harford says, “deaths had already been falling sharply for a couple of months.” To quote Harford, the graphic shows “catastrophe before, recovery after.” But it turns out Nightingale chose this unconventional chart format - rather than a straightforward bar chart - because the truth was more complicated. This chart implies that Nightingale’s arrival at the British military hospital changed everything. The rose diagram breaks the golden rule of charts and graphs by failing to tell an honest story.
There’s just one problem: Florence Nightingale lied with data. According to economist and author Tim Harford, “She was a master of data visualization.” She used data as a weapon against those who disagreed with her - once saying “ Whenever I am infuriated, I revenge myself with a new diagram.” In 1859 she produced the “rose diagram” above to show that her hygienic methods saved thousands of lives during the Crimean War. What you likely don’t know: She was also a data geek.įlorence Nightingale was the first woman elected to be fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. You probably know Florence Nightingale was a nurse, and that she introduced the then-revolutionary concept of basic hygiene to hospitals.
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