“I don’t care about the data …”
Attending a recent workshop on data visualization, the discussion after a presentation on a graphical display technique to visualize a particular type of data (sorry for not being more precise here, but the presenter would not like to be identified too easily) led to the quote of the speaker:
“I don’t care about the data, I am just interested in the method …”
which sparked a hefty discussion whether or not this can possibly be an answer a statistician is allowed to give - I would say “no”; what do you think ..?
Posted by in 19:36:51
I completely agree. I wrote something very similar recently on the relevance of the data in visualization, before reading your posting here. It’s a bit of an academics’ problem to be so focused on your method that you only use the data to demonstrate that and don’t care what it actually is about.
Robert,
it is interesting to get such a comment from a vis-person - who I would regard as the most easily infected by the problem we discuss … but maybe this is really a common academic “desease” as you pointed out - regardless of the discipline.
From a statistician’s point of view, a correct understanding of the data (including all the hassles of proper data cleaning and data preparation) can never be neglected. A method that just works on “some” data is potentially worth nothing.
Well I guess you can give it if you are not into Exploratory Data Analysis, Tukey’s seminal approach to statistics, which precisely implies a “look” and care at the data you are working with
I’m not a statistician but I don’t see what’s not to love about an approach that it’s both a philosophy and a hard science method. You gotta love the data 
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