November 17, 2012

infoGRAPHIC

Infographics can be useful — the New York Times ones usually are — but often they are just dubiously-illustrated lists of information.  Or, not even information.

One that is doing the rounds of the Internet at the moment purports to list the best-selling science-fiction novels of all time.  It’s not entirely correct.  For example, its entry for “Twenty Thousand Leauges[sic] Under The Sea”, says

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea – Jules Verne has sold over 10,000 COPIES and has been translated into 147 languages.

That would be over 68 copies per language. No wonder they kept translating it.

No-one seems to know the original source of this infographic, and my guess is that the true author won’t be eager to change  this situation.

(via)

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Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »