[4719] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: idiots
belville@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (belville@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Nov 17 16:19:39 1994
However, if the o-ring test data had been presented differently, there's no
way they would have gone ahead and launched. Instead of presenting it in
clear statistical graphics, they jumbled it up (sorted chronologicaly by test
instead of by temperature or something useful) with a bunch of cute pictures
of rockets, put it on a slide (so no one had anything hard to take away), and
thus missed the obvious. If the test data had been more clear, there's no way
they would have tried (politically) to launch. Engineers were watching the
launch all over the country saying, "It's gonna blow."
Just another case of statistical graphics being a matter of life and death.
(Source: Edward Tufte)
