Why I Think Google Chrome Will Be Highly Successful

Few things get me as excited as data visualization. I seriously love the
stuff, and
this project by the New York Times
is excellent. It shows homicide data for the NYC area over the past several
years, broken down by age, sex of perpetrator, sex of victim, race of
perpetrator, race of victim, weapon used, borough, time of day, etc.

Really cool stuff.

At the bottom it says, “Do you see any patterns that should be explored
further?” My first inclination is:

I mean, seriously. 90%? I find it amazing that the NYT can publish such
staggering stats and then put out op-ed columns about how the NYPD unfairly
targets black and hispanic people.

This is a textbook example of
the moralistic fallacy, which is the most common intellectual offense committed by liberals. This
fallacy puts forth the idea that things are, in reality, the way they should
be. In other words, that the police should scrutinize a young asian
kid in a suspicious situation the same way as a young black kid–because
there shouldn’t be any reason to evaluate one more than the other.

But reality clearly says otherwise, and I applaud any effort to shed light
on the truth–regardless of how unpleasant it may be. It’s much harder to
argue with data when you see it displayed in this way.

Now if we can just get some gun control vs. concealed carry data. I really
want to make some progress on my opinion on that matter. ::

Links

[
NYC Homicide Visualizations | nytimes.com
]