Truth, beauty, and data + R and tidyverse
Content for Monday, June 9, 2025–Friday, June 13, 2025
Readings
Required readings
Class details:
- The syllabus, content, lessons, examples, and assignments pages for this class
LLMs and AI:
- AI, LLMs, BS, and vibe coding
- Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries, and Joe Slater, “ChatGPT Is Bullshit” (Hicks, Humphries, and Slater 2024)
Why data visualization matters:
- Tim Harford, “Florence Nightingale: Data Viz Pioneer,” 99% Invisible, episode 433, March 2, 2021 (this is a podcast; listen to it in your browser or use an app like Overcast or Spotify)
- Study: Charts change hearts and minds better than words do
Foundational principles:
- Chapter 1 in Data Visualization (Healy 2018)
- Chapters 2 and 3 in The Truthful Art (Cairo 2016) (skim the introduction and chapter 1)
Slides
The slides for this week’s lesson are available online as an HTML file. Use the buttons below to open the slides either as an interactive website or as a static PDF (for printing or storing for later). You can also click in the slides below and navigate through them with your left and right arrow keys.
Tip
Fun fact: If you type ? (or shift + /) while going through the slides, you can see a list of special slide-specific commands.
Videos
Videos for each section of the lecture are available at this YouTube playlist.
- Introduction
- Facts, truth, and beauty
- Data, truth, and beauty
- Beautiful visualizations
- Class details
You can also watch the playlist (and skip around to different sections) here:
References
Cairo, Alberto. 2016. The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication. Berkeley, California: New Riders.
Healy, Kieran. 2018. Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. http://socviz.co/.
Hicks, Michael Townsen, James Humphries, and Joe Slater. 2024. “ChatGPT Is Bullshit.” Ethics and Information Technology 26 (2): 38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5.