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Article ID: CBB611540398

Visualizing Ignorance (June 2020)

Marcel J. Boumans (Author)

East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Volume: 14
Issue: 2
Pages: 331-345

URI: https://read.dukeupress.edu/easts/article-abstract/14/2/331/164309/Visualizing-Ignorance

DOI: 10.1215/18752160-8538811

Publication Date: June 2020
Edition Details: Special issue: Thinking and Acting with Diagrams
Language: English

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The Bank of England fan chart of inflation visualizes the uncertainty of the bank’s inflation projections. Visualization is a way to tame uncertainty, in the sense that uncertainty is brought under the measure of a probabilistic distribution, in this case a (two-piece) normal distribution. As such, taming is a process of homogenization, that is, a process of translating various heterogeneous items into a common medium. In this case, the common medium is a specific curve, the shape of which is determined by principles of ignorance: one starts with a simple symmetrical and smooth shape, and deviates from it if there is reason to. These principles of visualization work epistemologically in the same way that gestalt principles are used to perceptually structure visual information. This article shows that the principles of symmetry, proximity, and smoothness are the underlying heuristics that shapes the unknown future into a fan chart.

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Article Hsiang-Ke Chao; Maas, Harro (June 2020) Thinking and Acting with Diagrams. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 191-197). unapi

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